[House Hearing, 106 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
H.R. 853, THE COMPREHENSIVE BUDGET
PROCESS REFORM ACT OF 1999
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, MAY 20, 1999
__________
Serial No. 106-4
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Budget
----------
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
56-869 CC WASHINGTON : 1999
COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET
JOHN R. KASICH, Ohio, Chairman
SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Georgia, JOHN M. SPRATT, Jr., South
Speaker's Designee Carolina,
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut Ranking Minority Member
WALLY HERGER, California JIM McDERMOTT, Washington,
BOB FRANKS, New Jersey Leadership Designee
NICK SMITH, Michigan LYNN N. RIVERS, Michigan
JIM NUSSLE, Iowa BENNIE G. THOMPSON, Mississippi
PETER HOEKSTRA, Michigan DAVID MINGE, Minnesota
GEORGE P. RADANOVICH, California KEN BENTSEN, Texas
CHARLES F. BASS, New Hampshire JIM DAVIS, Florida
GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota ROBERT A. WEYGAND, Rhode Island
VAN HILLEARY, Tennessee EVA M. CLAYTON, North Carolina
JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire DAVID E. PRICE, North Carolina
JOSEPH PITTS, Pennsylvania EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts
JOE KNOLLENBERG, Michigan GERALD D. KLECZKA, Wisconsin
MAC THORNBERRY, Texas BOB CLEMENT, Tennessee
JIM RYUN, Kansas JAMES P. MORAN, Virginia
MAC COLLINS, Georgia DARLENE HOOLEY, Oregon
ZACH WAMP, Tennessee KEN LUCAS, Kentucky
MARK GREEN, Wisconsin RUSH D. HOLT, New Jersey
ERNIE FLETCHER, Kentucky JOSEPH M. HOEFFEL III,
GARY MILLER, California Pennsylvania
PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin
PAT TOOMEY, Pennsylvania
Professional Staff
Wayne T. Struble, Staff Director
Thomas S. Kahn, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
C O N T E N T S
Page
Hearing held in Washington, DC, May 20, 1999..................... 1
Statement of:
Hon. Jim Nussle, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Iowa.................................................... 4
Hon. Benjamin L. Cardin, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Maryland...................................... 13
Hon. David Minge, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Minnesota............................................... 19
Hon. Jacob J. Lew, Director, Office of Management and Budget. 38
Carol Cox Wait, President, Committee for a Responsible
Federal Budget............................................. 53
Hon. Dan L. Crippen, Director, Congressional Budget Office... 61
Rudolph G. Penner, former Director, Congressional Budget
Office, Senior Fellow, the Urban Institute................. 71
Robert Greenstein, Executive Director, Center on Budget and
Policy Priorities.......................................... 75
Prepared statement of:
Congressman Nussle........................................... 8
Congressman Cardin........................................... 16
Congressman Minge............................................ 20
Director Lew................................................. 39
Ms. Wait..................................................... 56
Director Crippen............................................. 64
Mr. Penner................................................... 73
Mr. Greenstein............................................... 79
Larry Bossidy, Chief Executive Officer, AlliedSignal,
representing the Business Roundtable....................... 98
Hon. Porter Goss, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Florida................................................. 100
Martha Phillips, representing the Concord Coalition.......... 101
Bill Frenzel, Co-Chairman, Committee for a Responsible
Federal Budget............................................. 105
April 6, 1999, letter from Director Lew to Congressman Spratt.... 46
H.R. 853, THE COMPREHENSIVE BUDGET PROCESS REFORM ACT OF 1999
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THURSDAY, MAY 20, 1999
House of Representatives,
Committee on the Budget,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 11 a.m. in room
210, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. John R. Kasich
(chairman of the committee) presiding.
Members present: Representatives Kasich, Chambliss, Shays,
Herger, Franks, Smith, Nussle, Gutknecht, Knollenberg, Ryun of
Kansas, Collins, Wamp, Green, Ryan of Wisconsin, Toomey,
Spratt, McDermott, Minge, Bentsen, Clayton, Price, Moran, and
Holt.
Chairman Kasich. The committee will come to order. Today we
are going to have a hearing on, obviously, budget process
reform. We will have the first panel, followed by a third
panel, and then sandwiched in between, Jack Lew, who will be up
here to talk about the administration's feelings about the
bill.
It is a long time coming. I am not sure this bill will at
the end of the day make it all the way through law, but if we
don't get moving here and get ourselves in a position of where
we can start creating the precedent of being able to deal with
budget process reform, then I think we are not taking advantage
of some opportunities.
This process reform does take some important steps. It
gives the budget the force of law and encourages Congress and
the President to start negotiating earlier, rather than later,
each year. We could figure that out. If this could actually
make that happen, that would be a wonderful thing.
It causes us to establish a kind of rainy day fund for
emergencies. So I think this is a breakthrough also, because it
says we should start paying attention to emergencies.
It also begins to force us to address some of the long-term
liabilities. It also addresses some of the higher spending
biases that we have hidden in the budget procedures and
contains a provision that would prevent government shutdowns.
Under the bill, if the President and Congress can't reach all
their agreement by the time their fiscal year starts, they
can't play games with the operation of the government, which is
great.
I want to particularly heap high praise, medals, and crowns
on Jim Nussle in particular and his partner in this, Ben
Cardin, two who really over the last year have really dug into
this effort. I want to give them my personal thanks and a
salute to them, and particularly Jim for the work he has done.
I will give a smaller crown, fewer medals, to David Minge, who
is just sharing in the glory here this morning. They were able
to work together--are you running for the Senate, David?
Mr. Cardin. Are you running for President?
Chairman Kasich. There is a quote of the day. Get that
down, Bud.
Anyway, I think this is really a good process. We will just
have to see how it all plays out.
So let me just say to John, before we start the hearing, we
will try to mark this bill up when we come back from Memorial
Day. We are going to have some work to do on the airport bill
and what we do with the on-budget/off-budget. John and I have
to have some conversations. My colleagues on my side, we have
to figure out where we are on all of this.
So anyway, I want to, John, give you the floor and tell you
that is the first time I have seen that Panetta picture. It is
pretty good, but it is a little dark. Good for Leon. OK.
Mr. Spratt. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me join you and
commend Chairman Nussle and Ben Cardin for working together,
working in earnest, and, according to Ben, Jim has been more
than cooperative and more than bipartisan, and I congratulate
you. I think you have put your shoulder to the wheel and really
worked on something that you think will be an improvement to
the process.
I have to disagree with many parts of it, unfortunately. I
don't criticize you for the effort; we just don't agree as a
matter of process on many of your recommendations, starting
with the notion that the budget should be a joint resolution
rather than a concurrent resolution.
I wholly agree the President and the Congress should get
together sooner rather than later. The best example I can give
of that is 1997 when the President insisted that we come
together and begin negotiating a budget early in the spring.
The product of that was the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. I
think that is a good example of the kind of cooperative
bipartisan by-product that can come from that kind of endeavor.
I am not sure that your own resolution leads you in that
direction. In fact, I think the joint resolution could delay
rather than expedite the process. It could create some
unintended problems since it does become a law, even though you
would prohibit it in your statute that implemented these
concepts. Since a joint resolution is law and a concurrent
resolution is not, it would be an invitation for some across-
the-board riders that would deal with things like abortion. You
may say no, we can take care of that, but who would have ever
thought you would see an abortion issue holding up a U.N.
funding bill? Abortion is so many places that it does crop up.
So the temptation and the urge and the compulsion to put it
somewhere might make this the greatest target of all, because
it cuts across the whole budget. It has a wider swath than
anything else.
That would be one problem. But I am more concerned about
the occasions when the President really is bent upon getting
his way, not willing to compromise; or when the Congress is of
the same mind, you can't come together, and this joint
resolution requirement, while it can be sidestepped eventually,
nevertheless involves wheel-spinning for several months and
loss of time rather than gain of time.
Ironically, the end result that you propose, after saying
we are going to elevate the budget resolution to the status of
a joint resolution instead of a concurrent resolution, the end
result of all this effort is less of a budget resolution than
we have today, because you would take the 20 functions which
are the main product of our effort here, take the 20 functions
out of the budget resolution and put them in the committee
report.
If there is to be a joint resolution and if the object is
to have a meeting of the minds between the President and the
Congress, then probably the end result should not be a 302
allocation agreement, but a 302(b) allocation agreement, where
the President and the Congress would come together and say
these 13 allocations are what we agree upon.
I know this is heresy, this is radical talk, but if you are
going to have a meeting of the minds, that is really a road map
for the budget process so that the President and the Congress
are more or less agreed. You haven't agreed on spending items
but you agreed on the broad 13 categories, then this would be,
I think, the desirable end product of all of this effort.
Chairman Kasich. I just wanted to say to the gentleman that
that is a very interesting suggestion, a very interesting
suggestion, about the 302(b)s. Anyway, not that I am telling
you to put it in, but it something to really think about. I
don't think it is a radical suggestion. I think it is a pretty
darn good suggestion.
Mr. Spratt. I told Jim Nussle, if you want to see something
bipartisan, you would see bipartisan opposition, I am sure.
Second thing, I will give these as examples and quit,
because we have witnesses to hear from and I don't need to
occupy the time of the committee with a lengthy opening
statement. One of the reasons we find ourselves in the happy
position of having surpluses and soon having on-budget
surpluses is because we adopted some rules in 1990 which have
been very easy to display. The PAYGO rule is one, the
discretionary spending caps is another. I am concerned this
bill may weaken the discretionary spending caps in a couple of
ways. First of all, it allows for the PAYGO rule--it changes
the PAYGO rule so that you can use on-budget surpluses to
offset either tax increases or entitlement cuts. I don't think
we can allow the on-budget surplus to accumulate forever and
say it cannot be used as an offset for any of these things. But
before we sanction the use of it, I think we first should deal
with Social Security. I know that is a political mantra of our
party, but I think it is a high priority.
Secondly, Mr. Kasich, our Chairman, has just told us that
in a week or two we are going to take up the request of the
Transportation Committee, the infrastructure committee, to take
the Aviation Trust Fund off budget. The land and water
conservation supporters also want to take it off budget. The
nuclear power generators want their millage taken off budget as
well. There is a big effort now to take these trust funds off
budget, and frankly, they have a valid argument. These are
dedicated revenue streams that are being used in part for other
purposes.
If we were to allow the on-budget surpluses to accumulate
for the next several years, about 3 or 4 years, it would
actually be enough on-budget surplus there to nearly fully fund
all the 150 trust funds and still maintain the approximate
level of expenditure we have got for discretionary spending
now. I think we ought to consider that objective, going back to
the budget and straightening the budget out so we can take care
of these dedicated funds, put them to their earmarked purposes,
and still have enough left for other purposes without having to
invade the corpus of these funds.
This just gives you sort of a low-level concern, micro-
concern, that you derive if you really read the text of this
bill and game how it might work. Somewhere toward the end of
the bill it says, in projecting CBO's projections and OMB's
projections of future levels of expenditure, the assumption
with respect to discretionary spending should not be the capped
baseline which CBO uses, which is discretionary spending today
adjusted by inflation, but it should be an extrapolation or
extension of the existing discretionary spending cap at the
level for which it is last established.
So if our cap runs out in the year 2002 and if it is at
$575 billion then, for the next, however long you are
projecting, according to the text of this bill, that would be
the assumption for discretionary spending.
This would artificially inflate the on-budget surplus
because it would artificially understate, I think, the level of
discretionary spending. I don't think we are already having
trouble meeting the levels this year. It will get harder and
harder as we go on. If you statutorily assume that this will be
the level and that on-budget surpluses will be computed with
this cranked into the calculation, you are inflating the on-
budget surplus and encouraging tax cuts to be made that
probably can't be supported by spending cuts downstream.
These are some of the problems I have with the bill that
cause me to oppose it. But I don't want to end without saying
once again I admire the effort you have made, and I don't rule
out the possibility we may find some ground for common
agreement. But there are lots of disagreements we have with the
mechanics of this bill you are presenting before us.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Kasich. Mr. Nussle, you may proceed.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. JIM NUSSLE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE STATE OF IOWA
Mr. Nussle. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me start by
thanking you and Mr. Spratt for not only your kind remarks this
morning about the work product, even notice there may still be
some heartburn, some concern, and maybe some disagreement and
opposition. We appreciate the high praise that you have given
us and the opportunity to form this task force to work on this
effort.
I want to thank all of the task force members, particularly
Ben Cardin and David Minge, for their work and their interest
in this.
Mr. Chairman, you were handing out medals before. Let me
suggest to you that the work product we have come up with today
is really one of those items that has been gleaned from the
work products of many, many representatives over many years. We
weren't the first ones to discuss some of these ideas, such as
the joint resolution idea. If I am not mistaken, I think Mr.
Spratt was even on a bill at one time that favored at least
some form of joint resolution. Chris Cox from our side. So
there are many people who have come up with many good ideas in
an incremental way for budget reform, and I want to thank all
of them, because we have gleaned through our hearings, their
advice, their counsel, their ideas and put them into this bill.
The other thing I would just comment on is that this is not
a science. When I came here to Congress, I maybe falsely
assumed, and my constituents probably assumed too, that
budgeting is a science. It is really an art. What we tried to
do in our budget process reform bill is not stand in the way of
the art, not stand in the way of the substance or the
conclusion of a budget, but make that conclusion more possible,
easier to achieve.
So we didn't game this process toward a certain outcome.
Mr. Spratt mentioned a moment ago that it may allow it to favor
tax cuts or cuts in discretionary programs. ``May'' is
different than it ``will,'' and many budget process reform
bills that have come down the pike in recent years gamed the
process toward a particular outcome.
What we have done in our process reform bill is tried to
say this is the process to get you to the decision, but the
decision is still ours. The decision is still the Congress of
the United States working in concert with the President, and
then we step back from the process to allow the appropriations
mechanism, the spending and tax committees, to make their final
determination.
So as we work through this, please recognize that we really
did try, there was a sincere attempt on all of our parts, to
never get into the substance of the decision itself, but only
talk about the game rules, the Board itself, how you played the
game to get to that decision.
Finally, as far as thank you's, let me also mention some
staff people. These are folks who know this budget inside and
out, the budget process bills. In fact, if I am not mistaken,
one of them was there at the infancy of the 1974 act and helped
write the original bill. Jim Bates, Richard Kogan, David
Koshgarian, Rich Meade and Scott Bruns all helped in putting
this together. I want to thank all of them. They are both from
the Majority and Minority staffs of the budget and from our
personal staffs.
If I may, Mr. Chairman, let me walk through some of the
basics of the bill for those Members who have not had a chance
to sink their teeth into this.
What we are basically doing is we are changing the way the
budget is arrived at. As most of you know now, we have what is
called a concurrent budget process and concurrent resolution
for the budget, which means it doesn't have the force of law.
It has the force of Congress' resolution. But, as you know,
that doesn't mean all that much all that often and can be
changed quite often.
What we decided was based on the success of what Mr. Spratt
and John Kasich, our Chairman, and the administration went
through, as well as Senate budgeteers in 1997, in early on
setting some aggregate numbers, putting them into a memorandum
of agreement, and then setting that out as the box from which
we work the rest of that year.
We decided to try and codify that process. So what we came
up with was a joint resolution. So the President would submit
his budget, Congress would pass a joint resolution, meaning a
resolution that would require the President's signature for it
to have the force of law.
What does that mean? It means we have to have an agreement,
and we have to have it before April 15th. It means the Chairmen
of the Budget Committees and the Ranking Members of the Budget
Committees, together with the administration, regardless of
what parties they may be, including if they are from the same
party, would have to sit down early in the process, and instead
of these budgets since 1974 which arrived on Capitol Hill dead
on arrival, we would have a process similar to 1997 that the
budgets would tend to be more realistic, they would tend to be
more honest, they would tend to have the opportunity at least
for negotiation early on, so that most of that discussion and
good work done by both sides would not be for loss.
Let's assume for a moment the President doesn't like the
budget that is submitted. Let's assume there is a breakdown in
those negotiations. It doesn't mean the process stops. What it
means is that Congress can fall back to its regular order,
which is the concurrent process. It means Congress is not
stymied under its constitutional duty under Article I to be the
holders of the purse. We would still be able to set all of the
302s, we would still be able to pass a budget, and we would
still be able to submit those appropriation bills to the
President at the end of the year.
However, early in the process, we would know that there was
a problem. We would know that there wasn't agreement. The
press, our constituents, the people watching, would know.
Instead of waiting until October and seeing some bill that is
6,000 pages long come before us at about 12:30 at night, they
would know there is a problem, and the pressure would start
mounting for agreements and discussions to move back toward a
more orderly process.
If in fact there is a joint resolution, of course, that
would set the wheels in motion for a regular order similar to
what happened in 1997. It wouldn't take away the opportunity
for discussion. It wouldn't take away anything from the
appropriation and tax writing committees, but it would, by the
end of the time, give us an opportunity for a much more orderly
process as a result of having that box.
What would the concurrent resolution--excuse me, what would
the joint resolution look like? The current format, which is in
the materials you have, have the 20 functions which, as Mr.
Spratt said, would now as a result of our bill be put into
report language. Part of the reason we did that is because who
can tell me the relevance of these 20 functions anymore? Do
they have any relevance, really, in all seriousness, toward the
13 appropriation bills? First of all, there is very little
correlation.
So what we did was put all those budget functions into
report language. Instead, we came up with a one-page budget
that is similar to the memorandum of agreement that was arrived
at back in 1997 which set the aggregate numbers for total
spending revenue, surpluses and debts subject to limits as well
as mandatory spending and discretionary spending.
We didn't go as far as Mr. Spratt's suggestion about
putting the 302(b)s in here. I have a feeling, as he suggested,
we would lose in a very fast manner most of the bipartisan
support, particularly from the appropriators. But we did at
least try and set the bigger box so that the rest of the work
could be done.
The other part of this that I wanted to just bring up
before I turn it over to my colleagues is emergency spending.
One of the biggest areas of heartburn over the last 4 or 5
years in particular has been emergencies and our supplemental
appropriations.
What we tried to do here is we tried to put more orderly
process into that as well, starting with budgeting for
emergencies. On a 5-year rolling average, according to
recommendations by our FEMA Director, James Lee Witt, who has
had an opportunity to research this and give us his impression,
he suggested a 5-year rolling average for emergencies, except
for, of course, situations, as we find ourselves in, where we
are at war. But most of the other emergencies that we have been
able to deal with, we could put in a 5-year rolling average and
actually budget for that as part of the budget process.
Then, as long as you stayed within that rainy day fund, if
you will, the appropriators would have not much more to do with
the Budget Committee except every time there was an emergency,
it would have to meet the definition, which is a definition we
took from the Senate definition of emergencies as well as one
submitted by the administration for emergencies. We suggested
that was a good definition and we worked out that as long as it
stayed within that rainy day fund, there would be very little
more discussion other than the bill would come to the floor for
passage.
If it goes over that, if the amount is more than the
reserve total, then the Budget Committee would have to come in
and amend or exempt the emergency from PAYGO and would have to
exempt the emergency spending from the allocations and the
aggregates under the caps. After that, of course, it would
follow the same process.
Let me just comment on a couple of things that Mr. Spratt
said on his different concerns, because I think there are a
couple of them that are--first of all, I appreciate the tenor
of his remarks. We have been able to keep this out of any kind
of partisan discussion, and I respect his concerns about the
process.
First, on the caps and what that would do to CBO
projections, we purposefully in here decided not to set caps,
again because that is a substantive decision: where the caps
are, where they go; higher, lower. Wherever they might
eventually arrive is something that Congress and the President
need to work out prior to 2002 and arguably needs to be part of
the first joint resolution as part of our new budget process.
So as a result, what did we do as a result of not having
those caps? We told CBO that one of the ways to apply pressure
to the budget process is say that if there are no caps, we
assume everything is just flat. What does that do? Of course,
nobody is going to allow flat spending. As much as the
Republicans like to talk about being the ones that like smaller
government and smaller spending, we would probably rush in too
and talk about the need for increasing spending. In my area,
probably in agriculture, everybody has got an area that they
are concerned about for increased spending or increased
priority.
So I have no doubt that this will help provide pressure as
opposed to, as has been suggested, assuming that the amount of
money left over would immediately go to either pay down the
debt or go to tax cuts.
Finally, let me just suggest that with regards to the on-
budget/off-budget situation, we felt the discussion in a
partisan way had gone far enough and that really last year when
this was negotiated, it was important for us to set aside that
money that came in which was Social Security and to set that
aside off-budget for Social Security.
This does not preclude, however, as Mr. Spratt suggested,
the use of the on-budget surplus for Medicare or Social
Security if that is in fact the will of the Congress, and it
would require that will of Congress in order to do it now under
current law. All we are suggesting is that under our process,
let's at least agree that there is money that goes into Social
Security that ought to be off-budget and not touched, and at
least agree on that. The rest of the discussion, whether it
goes to tax cuts, Social Security, Medicare, increased
spending, whatever it might be, is the will of the Congress,
and, again, we try to stay as a result of our bill away from
the discussion of outcome on that substantive point.
There are many other points within our bill. I talked about
some of the highlights that I felt were important, and I
appreciate your interest in listening. I would just point out
too, as Mr. Spratt suggested and Mr. Kasich suggested, I had
already today 2 people come up to me with new suggestions for
the bill. So I have a feeling that--and they were constructive
and not partisan. My hope would be regardless of the outcome
today and regardless of people's impression from the hearing,
that there may be some support or not support, or people are
counting noses already, let's keep the conversation alive. We
cannot have the train wreck we had when the government shut
down in 1996, and we cannot have the kind of really
embarrassment that occurred in 1998 either. I don't think
either party from any perspective can be proud of either one of
those two instances.
So, please, let us work together to come up with a new
process that meets some of those challenges, even though you
may not appreciate every single punctuation point in this
particular bill.
With that, I appreciate the time.
[The prepared statement of Jim Nussle follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Jim Nussle, a Representative in Congress
From the State of Iowa
I want to thank my Chairman, Chairman Kasich, for calling this
important hearing on our bipartisan budget process reform bill (H.R.
853) and for allowing me and my friends and colleagues, Representative
Ben Cardin (D-MD) and Representative David Minge (D-MN), to testify. We
all appreciate Chairman Kasich's leadership and assistance in helping
us move forward with budget process reform legislation. I also want to
thank two additional members of this committee, Representatives Sununu
(R-NH) and Radanovich (R-CA), for the important roles they have played
with H.R. 853.
Before I begin my testimony, I would be remiss if I did not also
thank Chairman Goss of the Rules Committee's Subcommittee on
Legislative and Budget Process for his leadership and hard work in the
development of H.R. 853. As you know, Chairman Goss did fine work as
Co-Chairman of the joint budget process reform task force formed
between our committees.
I would also like to recognize the contributions of the many
talented staff members who have logged numerous hours in this process.
Jim Bates of the Budget Committee Majority Staff as well as Richard
Kogan of the Budget Committee Minority staff proved to be valuable
resources and reliable counselors in this process. Additionally, David
Koshgarian of Representative Cardin's staff and Rich Meade and Scott
Bruns of my staff were also instrumental in the development of this
legislation.
In February 1998, Chairman Kasich appointed a bipartisan task force
on budget process reform to address such issues as the nature and
structure of the budget resolution, the budgetary treatment of
emergencies, budgeting for contingent liabilities, and baselines and
budgetary projections. Chairman Kasich deserves much of the credit for
this bill as he urged me to work with the Democrats on the Task Force
and gave me the necessary support at critical junctures in the process
to produce a bill (H.R. 4837) before the end of the 105th Congress.
Going into this process, we all knew that congressional budgeting
practices could be improved. We also knew the Congressional Budget Act
of 1974 needed to be examined with an eye toward an era of balanced
budgets and ``surplus'' revenues. What we did not envision, however,
were the difficulties experienced with the budget resolution for fiscal
year 1999 or the manner in which the final spending bills were cobbled
together.
Our task force held a series of topical hearings on budget process
reform in the spring of 1998. We heard a number of very good
suggestions and ideas from outside experts in budget policy, such as
the distinguished former Representative Tim Penny who co-chairs the
Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget; Dr. James Lee Witt,
Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA); Allen
Schick, Visiting Fellow, Brookings Institution; Rudolph Penner, the
former Director of the Congressional Budget Office; and Susan Irving,
the Director of Budget Issues of the General Accounting Office. Our
task force also heard testimony from nine of our colleagues in the
House who have a long-standing interest in budget process reform.
During the summer and early fall we began drafting legislation
based on the lessons learned from our hearings. We worked in a
deliberate and bipartisan manner to craft this legislation over a
period of almost 3 months. As a result of our efforts, we were able to
secure the support of a majority of the members of the task force on
both sides of the aisle. We also drew the attention of Representatives
who do not serve on the Budget Committee and won the support of
respected Members such as Representative Stenholm (D-TX),
Representative Barton (R-TX) and Representative Castle (R-DE).
Unfortunately, the fruit of our labor could not be harvested during
the hectic closing days of the 105th Congress. Since we had crafted our
bill in a bipartisan manner, we did not want it to become the object of
a partisan attack from either side of the aisle. We've updated and made
technical changes to our bill and reintroduced it in this Congress as
H.R. 853.
Our bill is based on the assumption that the following fundamental
principles should be used while developing a new budget process.
Congress should adopt and conduct a budget process that:
1. gives the budget the force of law;
2. budgets for emergencies;
3. discloses the unfunded liabilities of Federal insurance
programs;
4. strengthens the enforcement of budgetary decisions;
4. mitigates the bias in the budget process toward higher spending;
5. displays the unfunded liabilities of Federal insurance programs;
6. prevents government shutdowns; and
7. increases budgetary flexibility when there is an on-budget
surplus.
The following is an outline of the major provisions of the bill.
Joint Budget Resolution
Perhaps the most important element of the Comprehensive Budget
Process Reform Act is the conversion of the existing concurrent
resolution into a joint budget resolution which would have the force of
law when signed by the President. Under the current budget process,
Congress and the President are required to agree on individual tax and
spending bills but not the overall framework of the budget. Each year
the President presents a detailed, programmatic budget and the Congress
passes a concurrent resolution that establishes a common Congressional
framework for the consideration of subsequent tax and spending bills.
The only way that the President can affect total spending and revenue
levels is by vetoing individual bills. Consequently, the budget process
bogs down as the President may reject individual bills because he does
not concur with the overall levels on which they are based.
This dynamic was clearly in play in the 104th Congress when the
President repeatedly vetoed appropriations bills in part because they
were based on an overall level of discretionary spending that he found
unacceptable. Finally in 1997, the Congress and the President committed
to a common budgetary framework in a Memorandum of Understanding
between the Congress and the President. The MOU essentially served as a
joint budget resolution establishing the overall parameters for
subsequent tax and spending legislation. In fact, Congress and the
President have turned to such MOU's each time there has been a major
budget agreement and the Congress and the President were controlled by
different political parties.
Our bill was developed with the hope that we can regularly repeat
the great cooperation between Congress and the President that led to
the historic Balanced Budget Act of 1997. That process worked because
Congress and President Clinton agreed to basic principles and a
framework at the beginning of the budget negotiations process, and
weren't forced to negotiate under pressure of a deadline at the end of
the budget process.
If the President signs the joint budget resolution, Congress would
move tax and spending bills, which would be governed by the spending
limits established in the joint budget resolution. The President would
still sign or veto each spending bill as it passed Congress. If the
President refused to sign the joint budget resolution, Congress could
quickly pass a concurrent budget resolution and operate in a manner
similar to the current process.
In order to focus initial negotiations on the broad framework of
the budget, the Comprehensive Budget Process Reform Act would
restructure the budget resolution. The bill replaces the 20 functional
categories of spending in the budget resolution with seven categories
of budget aggregates: defense discretionary, non-defense discretionary,
total discretionary, mandatory spending, revenue, debt, and a reserve
fund for emergencies. The budget resolution would become a device for
reaching an agreement on overall spending and revenue levels. Policy
and distributional issues would be settled in subsequent negotiations
over individual tax and spending bills.
Reserve Fund for Emergencies
Another key element of the Comprehensive Budget Process Reform Act
is its reform of the treatment of emergency spending. In recent years,
emergency spending has increased dramatically, primarily as a
consequence of devastating events such as the Northridge earthquake and
Hurricane Hugo. However, higher emergency spending has also been driven
in part by the fact that emergency spending does not count against the
statutory spending caps under current budgetary rules, making it
essentially ``free'' money.
As was seen at the end of the last Congress in the Omnibus
Appropriations Act, emergency spending is basically defined as whatever
the President and Congress say it is. The Comprehensive Budget Process
Reform Act sets forth clear, concise criteria as to what constitutes an
emergency. These criteria, which are based upon the OMB definition of
emergency spending adopted following the Gulf War, are that the
spending must be for the prevention or mitigation of, or response to,
loss of life or property, or a threat to national security; and is
unanticipated. Unanticipated means that the situation is sudden,
urgent, unforeseen, and temporary.
The more concise definition of emergency included in the
Comprehensive Budget Process Reform Act should help curb some of the
more flagrant examples of abuse. For example, while I agree with those
who contend that the Year 2000 computer problem (Y2K) is a serious
issue, it would not constitute an emergency under the definition
included in this bill. Nor should Y2K be considered an emergency, we've
known about the challenges the year 2000 will present for a number of
years.
The bipartisan Comprehensive Budget Process Reform Act would also
reduce the incentives to mischaracterize spending as emergency spending
by creating a reserve fund for emergency aid, and reserve that money
exclusively for emergencies. By contrast, under current law there is no
limit to how much money can be spent on emergencies. The bill would
require Congress and the President to set aside an amount equal to the
5-year historical average spending for emergencies. That money could
not be spent unless the situation in question meets the criteria of
emergency defined in the bill.
I believe there is much to commend this approach. First of all, it
provides a reasonable assurance that emergency spending will go to
legitimate emergencies. Second, it preserves Congress's power over the
purse because it is the Congress that determines whether a legitimate
emergency exists. Third, it could relieve the Congress of the time-
consuming task of finding offsets for individual emergencies because
the reserve would come out of the caps. Fourth, it is based on a tried
and tested mechanism for augmenting the budget for bills that provide
funds for specified purposes. Since the enactment of the Budget
Enforcement Act in 1990, the Chairmen of the Budget Committees have
adjusted committees' allocations for such factors as continuing
disability reviews, arrearages, and land acquisitions. Finally, the
beauty of the reserve fund concept is that if we set aside more money
for disasters than is required, that amount simply increases the
surplus, because the money actually never was appropriated.
Accountability for Entitlement Spending
Our bill would establish several procedures to curb the
proliferation of new entitlement programs. Entitlements provide direct
spending because, once they are authorized, the spending occurs
automatically unless the underlying law is amended or repealed. The
funding levels for these programs are determined by the number of
eligible participants, the eligibility requirements and the benefit
levels in the underlying law.
Despite measures in the 1974 Budget Act designed to curb so called
non-controllable spending, the number of new entitlement programs has
dramatically increased. According to the General Accounting Office,
there were 145 more mandatory programs in 1996 than there were 10 years
earlier.
The Comprehensive Budget Process Reform Act requires that any
proposal for new entitlement spending, whether included in the
President's budget or Congressional bills, include a justification for
not subjecting the spending to annual appropriations. This will
encourage those proposing new entitlement spending to at least take
closer look at the programs and determine whether they really need to
be entitlements.
This bill also allows Members to offer amendments to subject
proposed entitlement programs to annual appropriations. It limits the
ability of the House to waive this right and makes any such amendment
germane to the bill. To facilitate the conversion of entitlements into
discretionary programs, the bill holds the Appropriations Committee
harmless for new discretionary spending that is offset by designated
reductions in direct spending.
Sunsetting and Expanded Oversight
The bill includes a series of small but enforceable steps toward
requiring all committees to systematically re-authorize all Federal
spending programs. I take as an operating premise that no program,
however important, should be immune from Congressional oversight.
The bill requires all committees to submit a plan for re-
authorizing all programs, both mandatory and discretionary, at least
once every 10 years. The House is prohibited from considering the
expense resolution of any committee that fails to submit a
reauthorization plan.
The bill prohibits the consideration in the House of any bill that
creates a new program that is not sunset within 10 years. Any bill that
authorizes a program for more than 10 years would be subject to a point
of order. Significantly, this requirement would only apply to new
programs, and neither new nor existing programs would automatically
sunset if they were authorized for a shorter period.
Automatic Continuing Resolution
We take the bold step of agreeing to an automatic continuing
resolution in order to prevent future government shutdowns. Our bill
would provide for an automatic interim appropriation for any program,
project or activity for which an appropriation bill is not enacted by
the beginning of the fiscal year. Funding would continue at the prior
year's level indefinitely, or until Congress and the President are able
to reach agreement on the appropriate spending levels.
I believe that an automatic CR will take away from both the
President and Congress the incentive to refuse to negotiate in good
faith on appropriation bills on the assumption that one side or the
other will bear the wrath of the public for shutting down the Federal
Government.
``Baseline'' Budgeting
The bill takes a small step toward changing the baseline mentality
that contends that any attempt to slow down the growth in spending
constitutes a cut. Drawing from a House-passed bill offered by
Representatives Stenholm and Penny during the 103rd Congress, our bill
requires that Presidential budget submissions, budget resolutions,
appropriations reports, and cost estimates compare proposed spending
and revenue levels with the actual spending levels of the prior year.
We also try to shed light on the sources of projected growth in
entitlement spending which is expected to explode early in the next
century. The bill requires both the Office of Management and Budget and
the Congressional Budget Office to periodically report on such sources
of projected growth in mandatory spending as inflation, changes in
medical technologies, and program enrollment.
Budget for Contingent Liabilities
During the Task Force hearing and discussion with GAO, CBO, and
OMB, it became clear that existing cash-based, short-term budgeting and
accounting procedures do not capture the contingent liabilities and
other long-term programmatic costs of Federal insurance programs.
Accordingly, this bill provides for a shift to accrual budgeting for
Federal insurance programs, as well as other measures intended to
capture the medium-term costs of proposed legislation and the long-term
budgetary implications of current and proposed budget priorities.
Currently, the budget shows the short-term cash flows for such
Federal insurance programs as deposit, pension and political risk
insurance. Frequently, the premiums paid into the insurance programs do
not reflect the program's long term costs to the Federal Government.
Not surprisingly, policy makers have little incentive to take measures
that would minimize the financial risk posed by these programs over the
long term. There is a strong incentive for policy makers to embrace
policies that provide short-term budgetary relief but exacerbate
financial problems over the long run.
Building on the principles of credit reform for loans and loan
guarantees, this bill requires OMB, CBO and Federal agencies to
estimate the expected loss from Federal insurance programs instead of
short term cash flows. Congress and the President would ultimately be
required to budget each year for the expected losses from new and
expanded insurance programs.
Additional changes are made in the budget process to capture other
long-term costs that are not reflected the budget. Most importantly, it
extends the horizon for the cost estimates of proposed legislation from
five to ten fiscal years. Additionally, it requires OMB and CBO to
periodically report on long- term budgetary trends under current law
and as proposed by the President.
``PAYGO'' Requirements and the Surplus
We were even able to find common ground on permitting the surplus
to be used for tax cuts and other initiatives if the budget is in
balance without counting Social Security surpluses. Under existing
PAYGO requirements, tax and entitlement legislation must be offset by
entitlement cuts or tax increases. Our bill permits tax cuts without
offsets so long as the Federal Government is running an on-budget
surplus. Notwithstanding our agreement on this element of the bill, we
may very well disagree on what the surplus should be used for whether
further PAYGO reforms are in order.
``Lock-Box'' for Spending Cuts
Our bill establishes procedures to lock in savings from floor
amendments to increase the surplus. The provision is similar to lock
box provisions that have passed the House with bipartisan majorities.
Under the lock-box, both the caps and appropriate levels in the budget
resolution are automatically reduced by the amount of a floor amendment
that reduces an appropriation line-item. This mechanism effectively
prevents the Appropriations Committee from reprogramming savings from
floor amendments to other programs in the same or another subcommittee
allocation.
Budget process reform is vitally important. Last fall the
conclusion of the fiscal year 1999 appropriations bills illustrated the
need for budget process reform. I am pleased our two committees have
been able to work so well together in crafting the Comprehensive Budget
Process Reform Act of 1999. I look forward to continuing our work
together as this bill makes its way through the legislative process.
Mr. Chambliss [presiding]. Thank you, Jim. In order of
seniority, Ben, we will go to you next. Jim alluded to
something in his testimony that I think is critical to this
process, which is the bipartisanship with which this
legislation was put together.
Ben, if you don't mind, in the course of your comments, you
will save me a question later by just talking about the
openness of these discussions and whether or not you and Jim
and Dave all feel that there has been real input from both
sides of the aisle and if this is a true, in your mind,
bipartisan effort.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MARYLAND
Mr. Cardin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the
manner in which you have posed that question.
Jim Nussle in his final comments here has really made an
invitation to all of us to join together and try to make this
the best possible bill we can. That is the manner in which he
conducted our subcommittee or task force during the past year.
As has been pointed out, I was appointed as the Ranking
Democrat, Jim was the Chair of the Budget Review Task Force.
At all times during the process, Jim made it absolutely
clear that his door was open for discussion and debate, he
wanted to make sure that any issue that was perceived to be
highly partisan, that we got that out of the discussion, and
that we stayed on target to deal with the real substance of the
budget process.
He also wanted to remove it from any specific budget
resolution or any specific year, and I appreciate those
efforts.
I know the pressure he was under, I know the pressure came
from both sides of the aisle, and he stood up to that, and I
applaud him. Mr. Chairman, I can assure you that this
recommendation is very much on a bipartisan basis from the
point of view of the work of our task force.
I also want to underscore another point, until I think the
Rules Committee scheduled their hearings and now you are
scheduling your hearings, many Members haven't really focused
in on our recommendations. That may be understandable. It
wasn't pressing at the time. It is a difficult subject. It is
not as interesting to most Members as dealing with the
substantive effects of the budget rather than the process, so I
really applaud this committee, and I applaud the comments of
John Spratt, that we need to look at this. We need to debate
it.
I am also happy to see you are not marking up until after
the holiday. That gives us an opportunity to discuss some of
these issues and see whether we can't improve some of the
provisions. I expect there are going to be some areas where we
are going to have policy differences. But I think some of the
issues raised are ones in which we can improve the final bill
that is recommended, I hope, to the floor and ultimately
passed.
We had, Mr. Chairman, three objectives. The first was to
make Congress more effective as an entity in dealing with
fiscal policy of this Nation.
As way of background, I served 8 years as the Speaker of
the Maryland legislature, so I take a little bit of pride in
understanding how a legislature should operate on fiscal
policy. When I came to Congress, I was appalled by the way our
budget process works. I disagree with those that believe that
this process is working. I don't think it is. Just look at our
vote this past week on emergency spending or our vote at the
end of last Congress on the omnibus spending bill. That is not
a process that has you and me involved in determining the
fiscal policy of this country as we should. We can do better,
we should do better, and our recommendations are aimed at that.
Secondly, we wanted to hold Congress more fiscally
responsible for our actions. We wanted to make sure that our
budget rules made sense from the point of view of doing what is
fiscally right for the people that we represent.
Third, Mr. Chairman, as you have already pointed out, we
wanted to make sure that our recommendations were bipartisan.
First, in the areas of making Congress more effective, I
believe a joint resolution signed by the President makes us as
an institution stronger; because, you see, under the current
system, we pass budgets that don't mean very much, in all due
respect to this committee. I served on it in the last Congress.
In the last Congress we were unable to pass a budget resolution
in our final year, and the budget resolution that has been
passed this year, very few people believe will become the
realistic blueprint for the adoption of the appropriation bills
or the tax bill that ultimately we hope will make its way
through Congress and be signed by the President.
So the process has us really doing an awful lot of work
right now, and it is unlikely it is going to mean very much.
What happens is in September or October we finally get together
with the White House, and I would argue with you that the
executive branch is in a much stronger position than Congress
when we meet in the fall of the year to determine what the
budget of this Nation should be.
That is true whether there is a Democrat in the White House
or a Republican in the White House.
Congress, the entity that represents directly the people of
this Nation, should have a stronger voice in the budget
process. By getting the President engaged earlier, we have a
much better chance in order to accomplish that.
Just look at our history on that as to how effective budget
resolutions have been.
Now, I understand John Spratt's concern about delay, but
let me just make two points about that. I would suggest that we
waste a lot of time right now in the budget process of this
country because we act on appropriation bills or tax bills or
reconciliation bills that have very little chance of ever
becoming law. I can remember how many years I worked on
different bills, just trying to find some vehicle that
ultimately would be signed into law.
We don't know that, and it is difficult in September to
have much impact as an individual member on what is going to be
finally included in a summit. So we waste a lot of time under
the current process.
But just to make sure that we don't paralyze Congress, we
have what is known as a ``soft landing'' on the joint
resolution. If we are unable to get a joint resolution, we
revert to a concurrent resolution. That is a very minor delay
in the process, but we hope we will have a joint resolution. We
hope to have a document signed by the President. We hope our
work will be meaningful, that each of us in our own capacities
on our respective committees that deal with the subjects that
are included in the budget will have a real role to play in
what is ultimately signed into law.
The second part about making Congress more effective is the
automatic continuing resolution. I know there are different
views on that. I think by having an automatic CR, there is more
likelihood that we will succeed in passing our appropriation
bills on time, because a CR is a failure and we shouldn't be
holding our constituents hostage.
The second major issue is to make us more fiscally
accountable. Jim talked about emergency spending. The way we
handle emergency spending in this institution is wrong. No one
can justify this process. The bill we passed this week was not
what we should have done under a regular budget process of
fiscal accountability.
The process, as outlined by Jim, is one that I think has a
lot more appeal to it by including it in a much more regular
process, but yet understanding there will be emergencies that
go beyond any planning that we can make, and for them to be
considered in due course.
We have also started accrual accounting. Just test this out
on your business leaders. Tell them you are on a cash basis
accounting system because we are too small of an entity to move
toward accrual accounting and budgeting. We start to move
toward accrual accounting in the insurance programs. I think
that is a step in the right direction. We have more entitlement
oversight in this proposal, which that is a step in the right
direction.
Lastly, on the bipartisan provisions. We limit the joint
resolution, and, Mr. Spratt, if it is not strong enough, let's
draft it better, because I share your concern on that. I don't
want to have a document out there that can cause some problems.
All we want to do is what is spelled out here, I think we are
very clear in the bill: general directions to our committees,
and one additional item that could be included in that, and
that is the debt limit issue.
On emergency spending we have been very careful from a
partisan point of view not to have it affect the caps. We think
that makes sense, so we are not prejudicing what we believe are
the current rules on funding emergency spending because they
were not considered when we adopted the caps. We think the CR
is neutral, it doesn't reduce or increase spending. That was
another partisan issue.
Let me talk lastly on the surplus and whether the PAYGO
rules apply to on-budget surplus. We make it clear it does
apply to the off-budget surplus. I think everyone here agrees
that the surplus generated through Social Security needs to be
firewalled for the Social Security situation or whatever we do
on that.
Last year when we worked on this proposal, we weren't
really that concerned about on-budget surpluses because we
didn't think it would materialize. It was our distinct
impression in talking to OMB that they believed that the PAYGO
rules did not apply to on-budget surplus. So let's talk about
it from a policy point of view. What is the right policy?
Now, it is interesting to me that OMB believes it is OK to
waive the PAYGO rules on on-budget surplus if we have an
autocratic summit, but it is not OK if we use a regular
legislative process in working on our budgets.
That doesn't seem to make any sense to me. The President's
proposal on dealing with Social Security cannot be done within
our PAYGO rules. You can't do what the President wants within
our PAYGO rules. What Mr. Archer has suggested in regards to
Social Security can't be done within our current PAYGO rules.
Both will require changes.
Mr. Spratt is very direct in saying we are going to have to
deal with changes in our PAYGO rules as it relates to on-budget
surplus. So why don't we trust ourselves to do the right thing,
to make the priorities between discretionary spending, between
entitlement spending, between tax cuts and paying off the debt?
Now, I share Mr. Spratt's concern on making sure we deal
with Social Security first. I am not going to support
legislation that doesn't protect Social Security and get that
done first. That is not what a process does. That is what the
bills will do when we finally consider bills in this
institution. I think many of us are very much on record in that
regard.
So I would just urge us to try to do what is right in the
process issues, and maybe--I want to make sure we protect the
revenues to be there when we incur obligations. I want to make
sure we pay down the debt as part of our priorities. If you
have better suggestions on how to handle this, come forward and
let us know. We came forward with what we thought was the best
way, protecting the prerogatives of this institution to do its
work, but also understanding that we do need budget discipline.
So I would hope as this process moves forward that the
invitation that has been extended both by the Chair, Ranking
Member, and by the two of us, the three of us, will be
accepted. Sit down, let us look at these different provisions,
let us engage our colleagues in this debate, because we can do
better in a budget process. I believe that this legislative
proposal would move us forward in the right direction and we
hope it will be improved and move forward during this term of
Congress.
Mr. Chambliss. Thank you very much, Ben.
[The prepared statement of Benjamin Cardin follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Benjamin Cardin, a Representative in
Congress From the State of Maryland
Chairman Kasich, Congressman Spratt, it is a pleasure to return to
the Budget Committee this morning to testify on reform of the
congressional budget process.
It is certainly time for a review of the process by which we in
Congress, as well as the executive branch, make budget decisions. It
has been a quarter century since the creation of the congressional
budget process, including the Budget Committees, the Congressional
Budget Office, and the existence of a budget resolution.
We began this process in the House more than 1 year ago when
Chairman Kasich created the Task Force on the Budget Process. I was
honored when John Spratt appointed me as the ranking Democratic member
of the task force, and I took the responsibility seriously.
The deliberations of the task force was marked by a truly
bipartisan approach. I believe this approach is crucial to the
consideration of these issues. While we have strong partisan
differences regarding the substance of budget policy, I believe we must
seek to keep the budget process free of partisan biases.
There is nothing inherently Democratic or Republican, liberal or
conservative about supporting a budget process that improves
accountability and gives the American people an accurate and clear
picture of the Federal budget. Six months of hearings on a wide range
of issues was followed by bipartisan consultations and discussion. As a
result of those efforts, Congressman Nussle and I introduced the
Comprehensive Budget Process Reform Act, H.R. 853.
The bill Rep. Nussle and I introduced proposes a number of
important reforms. I would like to highlight a few of them for you.
We stand at an interesting time in the evolution of the
congressional budget process. On one hand, our fiscal outlook is
stronger than it has been in decades. When we contemplate the prospect
of trillions of dollars of budget surpluses over the coming years, on
the heels of the largest deficits in our country's history, there is
reason for satisfaction over the direction of fiscal policy.
On the other hand, we have seen troubling failures of the
congressional budget process. In the past few years we have had
government shutdowns, gridlock between the executive and legislative
branches, and the breakdown of the process in Congress. These events
demand a careful review to determine how we can do our work more
efficiently.
The legislation we have introduced offers protections against
future recurrences of the problems that have arisen under the existing
system. One such reform is that we propose that the concurrent
resolution on the budget be transformed into a joint resolution,
requiring the signature of the President.
This change would bring the President into the budget process
earlier in the year. Under the current system, after submitting a
budget proposal in February, the president withdraws from the process.
He does not fully engage until the final negotiations on budget
reconciliation legislation and the appropriations bills in the days
leading up to the start of the new fiscal year. The result, as we have
seen too often, is the reality or the threat of government shutdown.
This proposal would require Congress and the President to resolve
their differences much earlier in the legislative year, thereby helping
to avoid crisis as the end of the fiscal year approaches. The evidence
that there is a need for a new approach is clear in the past 2 years.
Last year, as you know, the Congress failed to adopt a budget
resolution. The breakdown in the process led to an endgame in which the
Federal Government's fiscal decisions were rolled into one massive
omnibus bill, which Members were forced to vote without having had the
opportunity for a careful review of the provisions of the bill.
This year's budget cycle has offered a new variation of the
failure. While Congress adopted a budget resolution on schedule, it did
so by narrow partisan margins. I respectfully submit that the policies
envisioned in the budget cannot be achieved without the President's
signature on the appropriations bills or the tax and mandatory spending
changes, and it is unlikely that will happen. By bringing the President
into the process earlier, we would avoid last-minute deals that
frequently meet with the strong disapproval of the American people.
An additional provision of this legislation that is designed to
guard against the uncertainty and instability of future government
shutdowns would provide for an automatic continuing resolution. This
proposal addresses the situation in which any of the annual
appropriations bills has not been enacted by the start of the fiscal
year. It provides that in that circumstance, the agencies covered by
the appropriation will receive the same level of funding they received
in the previous year, until such time as the regular appropriation bill
is enacted.
It is important to point out that this provision does not prejudice
the deliberations of the Congress. An automatic CR provision can only
work if it is neutral in effect. That is, it should not be a tool that
either increases or reduces spending for the affected agencies.
The automatic CR has generated significant concern about the
dangers of putting the government on auto-pilot. I understand those
concerns. Decisions on the basic spending levels of the government
should be made by the people's elected representatives. When this bill
comes to the floor, I would support a clean up-or-down vote on this
provision of the bill.
In addition to these broad changes in the budget process, the bill
also addresses a number of more discreet issues. We propose an overhaul
of the process by which we fund emergencies. For too long, the Federal
response to emergencies has been funded almost entirely through
supplemental appropriations. We should bring basic planning principles
to bear on this area of Federal spending.
We will always have occasions that will demand supplemental
appropriations to respond to natural disasters and other emergencies.
But we can do a much better job of including emergency funding in the
regular budgetary process. We propose to do that by using a rolling 5
year average of emergency spending. Importantly, this change would not
affect the current caps.
In addition, we provide, for the first time, a definition of
emergency. We have all been troubled by the inclusion of non-emergency
items in emergency supplemental bills. As recently as last week, we
passed an `emergency' spending measure that included funding for many
priorities which would not satisfy the criteria established for
emergencies. By defining the term, we can help limit the spending items
that are included.
I would also like to call special attention to one of the more far-
reaching and innovative proposals in our bill. As you know, the Federal
Government, unlike virtually every other large organization in this
country, reports all its outlays and receipts on a cash basis. While
this approach accurately portrays some aspects of the budget, it also
creates significant inefficiencies and distortions in the policy
decisions we make.
Our bill proposes the application of accrual accounting principles
to certain Federal insurance programs. It simply makes no sense for us
to continue to ignore the long-term budget consequences of our actions.
When we issue a flood insurance policy, we have a reasonable
expectation of the costs that will ultimately be imposed on the
treasury. We should enter that liability on our books then, recognizing
that the premiums paid on the policy are obligated for the purpose of
paying future claims, rather than providing a source of easy money for
making that year's bottom line look good.
There are several other important budget reform provisions in the
bill which address the sensitive issues of enforcement and
accountability. They are the result of extended give-and-take, and I
look forward to further discussions as we consider this legislation.
One provision that especially requires discussion is the bill's
relaxation of the PAYGO rules in time of on-budget surpluses. For the
past 9 years, as we have struggled to dig our way out of the massive
deficits of the previous decade, we have been governed by the PAYGO
rules. The rules were adopted in the 1990 budget agreement as a tool to
impose fiscal discipline in a time of $300 billion deficits.
This bill would settle a question that was almost unimagined at the
time the PAYGO rules were adopted. The question of whether the PAYGO
rules were intended to apply during a time of budget surpluses was not
relevant in 1990. In FY '91, the on-budget deficit was $321 billion,
the off-budget, or Social Security, surplus was $52 billion, and the
unified budget deficit was $269 billion. There wasn't much question
about whether to apply PAYGO in time of surplus.
H.R. 853 would waive the PAYGO rules in times of on-budget
surpluses. It would not affect surpluses attributed to Social Security.
Let me point out first that when the Task Force considered this
provision, we were working under the impression that this was OMB's
position. I understand that OMB has now issued a statement to the
contrary effect.
This provision of the bill has generated considerable concern on my
side of the aisle that it will result in the passage of massive tax
cuts and drastic reductions in discretionary spending, or deep
sequestration of entitlement spending. I would vigorously oppose such
policies. The existing caps on discretionary spending for both domestic
and defense spending are unrealistically and unacceptably low. Our
country's two hallmark entitlement programs, Social Security and
Medicare, are both in need of new resources. Other mandatory programs
will not stand significant cuts.
The point of the provision waiving the PAYGO rules in times of on-
budget surpluses is to allow the Congress to work its will without
artificial procedural restraints. The fact is that both the President
and the Republican leadership have every intention of using the on-
budget surpluses for entitlement spending and/or tax cuts. The
President's Social Security reform proposal is built on the prospect of
using significant general revenues to bolster the long-term stability
of the program. Similarly, Chairman Archer has put forward a plan that
would consume almost all the on-budget surpluses for tax cuts designed
to preserve Social Security.
Opposition to this provision of the bill is based on the notion
that those decisions can be taken only in the context of a negotiated
budget settlement, or summit, but not by Congress acting in the normal
course of legislative business. I reject that view. Members of Congress
are willing to exercise responsibility in their votes.
The budget process, beginning in 1974, has benefited by the
expanded capacity and involvement of the Congress. The legislation Rep.
Nussle and I have introduced will further improve coordination between
the legislative and executive branches. It will help reduce the threat
that a breakdown in the budget process leads to a shutdown of the
government. It will improve the management and accountability of
Federal resources. Perhaps most important, it will restore
responsibility for the tax and spending decisions--the constitutional
power of the purse--to the people's elected representatives, where it
belongs.
I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today, and I
would welcome any questions you might have.
Mr. Chambliss. Now, Mr. Minge. Dave, I know better than to
think you are here just for the glory. I know that anybody who
is smart enough to figure out the dairy program is very capable
of writing a budget process bill. So I know you are the real
brains behind this. Dave, we look forward to hearing from you.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. DAVID MINGE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE STATE OF MINNESOTA
Mr. Minge. Thank you. I would like to talk about the dairy
program now.
I would like to join in the comments made by my colleagues
and just refer to the testimony that is prepared and submitted
to the committee by reference, and at this point proceed to
make a couple of very basic points.
First, this effort is much like campaign finance reform. It
is very easy to criticize everybody else's product, but it is
very difficult for us as a body to move ahead. It is something
that is frustrating to work on because no matter what one comes
up with, it is always criticized.
In this context I would like to speak especially to my
colleagues on the Democratic side. I think it is important to
recognize that this proposal contains in it many compromises
that were made by the Majority to accommodate criticisms of the
budget process as we have experienced it in the last 4 years,
where we have been unhappy as a Minority with some of the
things that the Majority has done.
So these accommodations, if you will, to our criticisms,
are points that we should not overlook. Let me just quickly
mention five of them.
It would permit the Minority to raise a point of order to
enforce the budget resolution to unreported bills, bills that
come out of leadership task forces and other sort of sources
within the body. This is something that Mr. Moakley had
recommended and urged in the bill that he introduced, and I
know it rankled many of us on the Democratic side, especially
in the 104th Congress.
Secondly, to fully phase in the accrual or the risk assumed
budgeting for Federal insurance programs, again, this is
something that we on the Minority side, Democrats, have urged.
Third, the continuing resolution, the automatic continuing
resolution. As I recall in 1995-1996, the proposal was that it
would be at 95 percent of the prior year's expenditures, and we
were outrage. Well, this proposal does not continue that 95
percent position. Instead, it is funding at the prior levels of
expenditure 100 percent.
So there is an accommodation here, again, to the point of
view that we were urging in that troubled year of the 104th
Congress, troubled session.
Fourth, the use of the on-budget surplus and the changing
of the PAYGO rules allows for that surplus to go to entitlement
expansion or enhancements. It is not just tax cuts.
Now, I agree with Mr. Spratt that we ought to have more
discipline as to how we use that surplus, and I would like to
see it used for debt reduction. But I recognize that this
particular proposal is at least evenhanded. The surplus could
be used either for tax cuts or for entitlement enhancements,
and that is something that I know many of my colleagues on the
Democratic side would urge.
Finally, this proposal takes a whack at the, as I
understand it, the so-called Byrd rule, which prevents the
Senate from raising points of order against provisions in a
conference report that the Senate deems extraneous to
reconciliation. I know that the former Chairman of this
committee, Martin Sabo, was very upset with that prerogative on
the Senate side. So we attempt to address that, and hopefully
the Senate would at this point recognize that such an
adjustment is one that is long overdue.
I make these points not to say, again, that this bill is
the best possible budget reform proposal that could be drafted,
but instead to say it represents a bipartisan, evenhanded set
of reforms that all of us ought to very seriously study and
hopefully we can get behind.
If there are improvements that can be made to it, and some
of the points you made, John, are improvements that I concur
with, let's try to convince our colleagues that these
improvements should be accepted as a part of a final reform
package. But like the campaign finance reform debate, let's not
let the improvements be the occasion to defeat a proposal. I
think that that would take us in the wrong direction.
Thank you.
Mr. Chambliss. Thank you, David.
[The prepared statement of David Minge follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. David Minge, a Representative in Congress
From the State of Minnesota
Mr. Chairman and fellow members of the committee:
Thank you for allowing me to testify today on H.R. 853. I want to
commend the Chairman for forming the Budget Process Reform Task Force
during the last Congress, which provided a helpful forum in which to
discuss budget process issues. I also wish to congratulate Mr. Nussle
and Mr. Cardin on their efforts in crafting this bill, and for the
hours of work they devoted to hearings and discussion of the
provisions.
I would like to begin my remarks today by reaffirming that this
bill is truly a product of bipartisanship. While there are items in the
bill that I might change (and I am sure my colleagues can say the same)
if offering the bill myself, this is a bill that deserves support, as
well as swift passage by the House of Representatives.
The bill has many strengths, as my colleagues have outlined in
their testimony. Rather than duplicate their statements, I would like
to comment on a few provisions that I find particularly important. The
first that I would like to highlight is the emergency spending
provision.
Unfortunately, the current emergency designation has become a way
for Congress to skirt the discretionary caps and disregard the Pay-As-
You-Go (PAY-Go) Rules. These important enforcement tools, along with a
strong economy, have put a Federal budget surplus within reach. H.R.
853 offers a needed solution to budget-busting supplemental
appropriations bills that undermine budget discipline. While much of
the recent emergency appropriations bills have gone to fund legitimate
emergencies, Congress is often tempted to throw in spending that ought
to be allocated in regular appropriations bills. By creating an
emergency reserve account, H.R. 863 would force Congress to stop
misusing the emergency spending designation by using a cap based on the
5-year rolling average for emergency spending.
Another important component of H.R. 853 is the shift to ``accrual''
accounting for certain Federal insurance programs. While some
Administration officials have expressed mild reservations about the
implementation of this provision, I believe it is an important step in
the right direction. Current estimates about the liabilities of these
programs are unrealistic, and this is a needed change to the budget
process. I believe it is far better to use an imprecise estimate of the
right concept than a solid estimate of the wrong one.
I will admit that I am a bit concerned about the relaxation of the
PAY-Go Rules with regard to on-budget surpluses under the bill. I
appreciate the need for tax cuts. Indeed, the Blue Dog budget which I
helped write outlined a plan that would have required some loosening of
the PAY-Go Rules. It would be my preference, however, to retain this
budget enforcement provision for half of the on-budget surpluses,
relaxing the PAY-Go Rules to use only half of the on-budget surplus for
tax cuts or spending, with the other half used to reduce the debt. But
I recognize and want to commend the Chairman and Ranking Member of the
Task Force for the spirit of compromise and bipartisanship that went
into this bill. I am not willing to temper my support for the bill as a
result of my doubts about this one provision, because I am certain that
most of the bill's cosponsors have made modest concessions on ideas
that are equally important to them. I believe this productive climate
has resulted in a solid, meaningful measure that deserves wide support.
In closing, I would like to address some of the concerns that have
been raised about this bill. While each provision of this bill may have
a predictable downside, one must always address whether a proposed
improvement is worth the risk. I believe there are some who think
nothing is wrong with the current system, so there can be no risk worth
taking. Others, like me, would disagree that the current system is
working just fine.
If you truly believe we need budget process reform, there is very
little, on balance, to criticize in this bill. The bill is a product of
a bipartisanship at its finest, and was an honest attempt to improve
the budget process.
Those who do not agree that we need reform will oppose this bill,
and they should. But their concerns ought to be measured in light of
their opposition to any changes at all. We must debate the merits of
the bill, especially in comparison to the current process and in
relation to other options for reform. But we should not hide the debate
about whether reform is needed inside the debate about the merits of
this bill.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Specific Provisions in H.R. 853 of Interest to Representative Minge
provisions of special interest to democrats
The following provisions were either done at the request of
Democrats, taken directly from Democratic bills, or primarily intended
to benefit the minority:
Provide for fall back concurrent resolution if the joint
resolution is vetoed and not overridden.
Permit the minority to raise points of order that enforce
the budget resolution to non reported bills (Moakley bill). Eliminates
a key loophole that the Leadership uses for bills that breach the
allocations and aggregates in the budget resolution in order to avoid
waiving the Budget Act.
Fully phase in accrual (or risk-assumed) budgeting for
Federal insurance programs. Initial proposal did not fully integrate
accrual concepts into the Federal budget without a subsequent act of
Congress.
Permit minority amendment to cap-adjusted programs (i.e.
IMF, continuing disability reviews) by providing for an automatic
adjustment of the 302(b) allocations). Currently the minority is
prevented from offering amendment to these programs until the
Appropriations Committee revises the 302(a) allocation which is long
after the bill has passed the House.
Establish the level of the automatic continuing resolution
at the prior year's levels rather than 95% of the prior year (or lower
of House and Senate levels or even lower level for unauthorized).
Prohibits budgetary projections from including Social
Security in the budgetary aggregates (Rep. Minge).
Exclude existing entitlement programs from point of order
against against legislation that does not have to be reauthorized at
least every 10 years.
Allow on-budget surplus (i.e. non Social Security) to be
used for both tax cuts and entitlement expansions.
Require cost estimates and other budgetary documents to
compare proposed levels to corresponding levels from the prior years
(Reps. Penny, Stenholm and Minge).
Require the enactment of additional offsets for tax cuts
if the on-budget surplus fails to materialize (also applies to
entitlement increases).
Require annual reports on long-term budgetary trends for
major entitlement programs (Kerry Commission recommendation).
Prevent Senate from raising a point of order against
provisions in a conference report that the Senate deems ``extraneous''
to reconciliation (Rep. Sabo).
Enable the sponsors of floor amendments to designate
savings from amendments for deficit reduction (Reps. Schumer and
Crapo).
Mr. Chambliss. Let me just say that Ben said it directly
and the other two of you have alluded to it, which is the fact
that your process bill will certainly not only make Congress
more accountable, but it will put us in the loop more and it
will change the way we do business around here. I don't think
anybody disagrees, Ben, with what you said about the way we
pass supplemental bills. That is just wrong. It is not fair to
the American people that we do things that way. Obviously it
appears that your bill's chain of command, will change that and
it is going to change it for the better.
I am hearing all of you say that you don't consider this to
be a perfect bill. You are still willing to listen to anybody
on this committee or any other Member of Congress over the next
several days, couple of weeks, whatever it may be, until we
take this bill up. And I would just encourage everybody who has
an idea to sit down with them collectively or individually and
let's see if we can't develop further what they have come up
with to this point or at least give them your ideas and
suggestions. Don't wait until we get to the markup and
criticize them. That is a good point, David.
At this time I yield to Mr. Spratt for any questions he may
have.
Mr. Spratt. Well, I have had the opportunity to talk with
Jim Nussle and Ben Cardin and to some extent David Minge, so I
will let other members ask questions. Let me just for
clarification ask, do you agree the bill as it is currently
drawn provides that the discretionary spending baseline for
projection purposes is assumed to be frozen or flat at the
level of the last year for which the cap is established?
Mr. Nussle. Assuming that new caps are not established,
that is correct.
Mr. Spratt. So this would, wouldn't you agree, artificially
inflate the appearance of the on-budget surplus in many cases?
Mr. Nussle. Well, it depends. See, I think it is a--the
point you are making is a good one, and it depends on how you
look at the future. If you look at the future and assume that
the Congress of the United States is going to cut education and
cut farm programs and cut Medicare and cut Medicaid, if you
assume that that is automatically going to happen when that day
comes and that all of that money would then therefore go in a
large tax increase, then I suppose you can continue to assume
that that is what it will do.
But I don't assume that, and I don't think anybody
realistically does. For rhetoric purposes, you can make that
comment. Realistically, we all know, as has always happened,
that some agreement between the Congress and the President
would change that future. All we are suggesting here is we want
to be realistic. Without that cap, that is exactly what would
happen. Without any discipline into the future, that is exactly
what would happen. Nothing would change.
We want to illustrate for not only the Congress and the
President, but for the American people, that we are maybe
behind, and hopefully what this could do is apply pressure,
could apply pressure to an agreement between the President and
the Congress to make new adjustments to those caps so that in
fact what we are both discussing here would not be a realty in
the future.
Mr. Cardin. Let me just give a view on this. We drafted
that with the assumption that there would be budget caps in
place before Congress would be using projected surpluses based
upon baselines beyond 2002. That was the assumption that we
made.
I don't think any of us want to see Congress encumber
surpluses projected on baseline freeze for programs such as tax
cuts or additional entitlement spending. So I share your
concern on that. But it was based on the assumption that the
budget resolution that would be first considered would deal
with the caps beyond 2002.
Mr. Spratt. With respect to the CR, I think it was Mr.
Nussle who said that having an automatic CR would spare us from
the embarrassment of shutting the government down again. But in
addition, it would shield us from the embarrassment of having
to acknowledge that we hadn't done our work, we had not
addressed spending for the next year and pared back those
things that weren't justified and provided for increased
spending in those areas where there could be justification.
Consequently, it would take away some of the urgency and
compulsion for us to make compromises and get the work for the
year done and put it behind us. Instead, we would always have
this to fall back upon. It might become sort of the default
mechanism for a number of different appropriation bills.
I could easily see, for example, the foreign aid and
operations bill becoming just a CR every year. Does that
concern you? Is that a concern of yours, too?
Mr. Nussle. You are correct. As you know, we have operated
under continuing resolutions many times in the past for certain
appropriations bills. That does not, however, mean that it
would be automatic for all appropriation bills.
When you say it could for us be a shield, who is the ``us''
you are talking about? It won't be for me in those areas where
I wanted to increase those priorities or in the areas where I
wanted to make tax changes. It wouldn't be for, let's say, the
people on your side that have priorities for spending
increases. So I think a majority of us would suggest that that
would be failure, and hopefully a majority of us every year
would suggest that that is failure. It is that failure, not
failure necessarily to the American people, because, you are
right, if the government doesn't shut down and we all go home
on September 29th or whatever, full well knowing that we have a
continuing resolution, certainly that might be a shield for us.
But if you were trying to increase a priority, if you were
trying to change a focus or have a new program or a new
entitlement or change the Tax Code, that would certainly be
failure. And my guess is, based on the amount of requests that
the Appropriations Committee has received already this year
from Members on both sides, that would be a failure for a large
majority of this Congress.
Mr. Spratt. One other feature, and then I will let others
ask questions, is the lockbox which we voted on the floor for.
I think I probably voted for various versions of it, but with
some apprehension, to be quite honest about it. As I read your
particular lockbox, I get apprehensive too.
Let me paint a scenario as an example. The House could on
the floor knock out an item in the energy and water
appropriations bill for, say, a water project on the Sacramento
River in California, and the Senate could knock out a project
for the Tennessee River, the same amount of money, same bill.
As I read your bill, before the conference even started,
there would be entries to the so-called lockbox ledger of,
let's say it is $500 million each project. There would be a
$500 million entry in both sides, and those two would average
out to be $500 million. There would be, therefore, an automatic
deduction in the level of expenditure for that particular
conference committee.
There may be no meeting of the minds whatsoever between the
House and the Senate. The Sacramento project might get funded,
the Tennessee project might get funded, but they would have
$500 million left to take out of their hide, not only that year
out of that bill, but then that $500 million would be deducted
from the discretionary spending cap for as long as there is a
cap.
That strikes me as anomalous, something we wouldn't want to
see happen, unless there was a meeting of the minds to take it
out. Even then I am not sure we would want to extend the amount
of money indefinitely into the future.
Do you have any concerns or problems about this mechanism?
Mr. Nussle. First of all, you are technically correct, if
the amendment on the floor doesn't specify where that money
would go.
Mr. Spratt. I am assuming it would be designated for the
lockbox in both houses.
Mr. Nussle. There has been another alternative used more
often than that, and that is the money is directed to another
priority within the same appropriation bill. If that occurs,
then in fact you don't lose the money from the cap and it could
be--that adjustment could be made later on. Let's assume you
are correct; it is undesignated. You are correct then still
that that money would not be there at the conference at the end
of the day.
This is, quite frankly, one of the areas that we had quite
a bit of discussion about. We want to be able to allow Members
on the floor to work their will without just assuming that the
appropriators have the ultimate say of the 302s. This is one of
the ways we were trying to achieve allowing Congress to work
its will within the 302(b) allocations without giving them a
resolution up front.
It is probably not perfect, but we had quite a bit of
support throughout the Congress on this provision, and that is
why we placed it into the bill. I think Mr. Minge was one of
the authors. Maybe he wants to comment on it.
Mr. Minge. I think one of the fears is that the House and
the Senate and the conference committee have worked a fair
amount of mischief in dealing with the good intentions that
might arise in both bodies, and that having a provision
structured the way it is will make the conferees much more
sensitive to their responsibility to work through the wills of
each body in the final conference report and actually observe
the lockbox principle, because it is going to place, whether it
be the appropriations process or some other committee in
Congress, in a rather delicate position if they don't pay
attention to what is happening based on the cutbacks and the
lockbox commitment that arose in each body.
So I think there is sort of an enforcement concept built
into it, and that has, I think, a positive side to it.
Mr. Spratt. Thank you. And, David, I want you to explain
the dairy program to me someday.
Mr. Nussle. If I could interrupt one more moment, just to
clarify one thing, the amendment on the floor by the Member
introducing a cutting amendment could also designate, let's
say, the $500 million cut from the Sacramento River project
would be cut, but that the appropriators would not lose that
allocation, would not lose that money from their allocation. It
could be directed as a cut, but they would not have--they would
have money left over. So there is a third alternative.
Mr. Chambliss. One other thing that occurred to me, has the
White House been involved in your discussions at all?
Mr. Nussle. They declined to testify when we were holding
task force hearings. However, they were consulted on the
insurance provisions. We did have administration officials that
came down; for instance, James Lee Witt from FEMA. I don't know
if you had any other specific contacts. But I don't know if
anyone took it seriously, quite honestly, to start with.
That is the reason why people have woken up today and said
Republicans and Democrats can agree on the way the budget ought
to be done. This is interesting. So I think there has been a
renewed interest in this as a result of the product itself. But
during the process of coming up with this product, they
declined to get too involved in this.
Mr. Cardin. I heard from the White House on some of the
provisions. I think they have been rather negative on budget
reform process. My personal read on it is that they sort of
like having the upper hand.
Mr. Chambliss. Mr. Shays.
Mr. Shays. Thank you. I just want to congratulate you, Jim,
Ben and David, for what you have done, and say one of my hopes
had been that given that we had a Congress that is pretty
balanced between Republicans and Democrats, we both would be
able to think as Majority and Minority. I mean, Republicans
could be in the Minority, and how would we want to function
under that? Democrats could be in the Majority.
I am concerned with the criticism that the automatic CR
reduces the President's leverage in the end-of-the-year budget
negotiations. My reaction is you could have a Republican
President, and Democrats should realize that there are reasons
why you don't want a President to have this kind of
overextended power.
The elimination of the baseline budgeting is the same. We
should take into consideration inflation in current services.
Take it into consideration but know you are going to be
spending more money.
But I want to say the creation of the joint resolution, the
criticism that it needlessly delays the process, I think it
puts it up front, because right now we are in a bind. We are in
a bind. We know the President is going to want to spend more
money. We also know that the President is going to want to
spend more money in certain areas. Why don't we know that up
front and let's have an agreement? If the President wants to
spend more money here, we want to spend more money here or cut
here, have an agreement, and then really have a realistic
debate when it goes before the appropriators.
Admittedly, it gives the President a disadvantage, because
he has to come up front. He is a Democrat now, but it may be a
Republican. I just hope we can kind of put that behind us and
get on with it. It is a comment. I would yield the rest of my
time to Mr. Smith.
Mr. Smith. Thank you. Part of my concern, is how much more
clout this gives the President of whichever party. Congress has
lost control of the purse strings, to a great extent, almost
completely. If we are so fearful that government might be shut
down that we have to compromise like the $20 billion
supplemental that we did last fall, there is a problem.
So I am looking at roughly 16 percent of the budget in the
12 appropriation bills, not including defense, that we still
have control over, but even that control is somewhat
dissipated. So I am concerned that requiring the President's
signature might reduce even further Congress' ability to guide
spending.
I would like to especially ask questions relating to the
debt limit and Social Security. I have been very concerned in
our existing rules that we automatically pass an increase in
the debt limit. If the budget resolution calls for more
spending, it could be accommodated by an increase in the debt
limit. So we repeal what used to be Rule 49. I think it is Rule
20 or 21 now. That is repealed. But in its place we put
something almost as bad.
On page 8, I see line 16, we say that we can include in
this whole joint resolution an increase in the debt limit. So
my preference, of course, would be to have that more prominent,
out front, so we have to be bold and more up front in
increasing the debt limit.
If you care to respond to that, good. Otherwise, I will
proceed with my next concern.
Mr. Cardin. It has to be reported from the Committee on
Ways and Means and would be voted on. So you are not avoiding a
vote, if that is what you are concerned about.
Mr. Smith. It would be included in the joint resolution as
I read it.
Mr. Cardin. It could be. It doesn't have to be. I am not
sure I understand the difference, why you would be concerned
about it in a joint resolution versus in the final
reconciliation bill that is voted on.
Mr. Smith. That is a good point. I am a little concerned
about both, to the extent it clouds the decision on the debt
ceiling and puts it aside as a less prominent or dominant
concern.
Mr. Cardin. To answer your question, you should understand
when you approve a particular budget, that is what you are
approving. It is part of the consequence of the budget that is
on the floor. It makes more sense to include it in the budget
resolution than it does in the reconciliation bill, which is
sort of after the fact and it gets buried. Here you are dealing
with it up front where you have a chance to do something about
it if you don't like it.
Mr. Nussle. Could I also jump in? Because I know this is an
important point to the gentleman from Michigan. If you put it
in the reconciliation or the continuing resolution, wherever
you put it at the end of the year, omnibus bill, it is buried
in about 1,500 pages. If you put it in a joint resolution,
right here, it is right on the front page.
Mr. Smith. You haven't totally satisfied me, but I will
move on.
Mr. Nussle. The difference is you know what you are voting
on. Most people don't know in the omnibus bill or a
reconciliation that it is in there. That is my only point. I
think it is highlighted differently.
Mr. Smith. That is a somewhat good point.
Otherwise, let me just say, on page 25, it says,
notwithstanding any other provision of law, the disbursements
to Social Security cannot be part of this joint resolution and
shall not be counted as outlays.
I haven't studied this enough, but I would like to be
comfortable that, starting at the estimated time in 2013, that
when we have to start paying back to the Social Security Trust
Fund, when it becomes an expense from, if you will, the general
fund, somehow I want to be comfortable that that doesn't
preclude having an appropriation out of the general fund to
cover what is owed in the Social Security Trust Fund.
Mr. Nussle. Which it wouldn't.
On your first point, that is current law. It just would now
apply to a joint resolution is all we are suggesting.
Mr. Smith. Yes. Well, maybe that is true.
Mr. Nussle. That is the only change we made on that
particular page.
Mr. Smith. It just says, no disbursements from this joint
resolution can be used for Social Security. So do we
technically say that any disbursement to pay back the trust
fund is not a disbursement from the general fund?
Mr. Nussle. Why don't we get back to you on that? Let's
research that and find back. It is a good question. I don't
know right off the cuff.
Mr. Smith. I yield back.
Mr. Chambliss. Mr. McDermott.
Mr. McDermott. I thank the task force for their efforts.
There is a bit of historical revisionism going on here.
People are now worried about giving the President too much
power. But this was the Congress that wanted to give the line
item veto, and as soon as the President had it, they didn't
like what he did with it. So I think you have to be careful and
think of swords cutting both ways.
Mr. Smith. If the gentleman will yield, I didn't vote for
the line item veto.
Mr. McDermott. Neither did I.
I think this automatic CR is sort of an interesting sword.
I was thinking to myself, if I look as a physician at what
happened, why are we worried about the budget process? What is
it we don't think works?
Well, we had the government closed down, and last year we
didn't have a resolution--that is because one party tried to do
it all inside of their own party. I liked the CR, because with
President Gore and the Democrats in charge of the House of
Representatives, a minority of the Democratic Party will not be
able to close the government down and use that leverage to stop
the government from operating. I think that the minority inside
the majority party is as much to be feared as the President. I
think you have to think how your legislation is actually going
to work.
So I kind of like your automatic CR, because we are going
to go ahead no matter what.
What does worry me is the President setting high
expectations. I can't figure out from this process who says how
much money there is going to be out in the next year.
But if you set it up high and then calculate your tax
breaks and set them out there and then the money doesn't come
in, the automatic sequester that, from my reading of this bill,
comes out of Medicare and student loans and crop supports and
the social service block grant, when I think about putting us
on automatic once we have had somebody give us a high-flown
estimate, then we give the tax breaks based on that, and if it
doesn't work, we got to cut the entitlements----
Do I understand how this thing would work? Is that your
understanding of what would happen? If we put a budget
resolution together, is that your understanding? That had high
estimates, that then----
Mr. Cardin. Not a budget resolution. If we put a bill on
the floor that would accomplish that, it would have to take
legislation.
Mr. McDermott. Would the resolution itself do that?
Mr. Cardin. No, the resolution is direction to the
committee. It is what we finally enact into law.
Mr. McDermott. If the committee acted on the basis of that
resolution.
Mr. Cardin. If there is policy enacted under current budget
rules or whether this is changed and we don't comply with the
requirement on revenue, there is a sequestration. That is the
current enforcement mechanism that we put into law. So if we do
not comply to what we have, if the revenues don't come in the
way we expect it to, then you run into a sequestration problem.
Mr. McDermott. What this does is to repeal the PAYGO
restrictions on the use of on-budget surplus. It opens it up,
loosens it up.
Mr. Cardin. Again, I would say that we were--no one
envisioned what we were going to do with surpluses. When we
passed the PAYGO rules, it was very clear from all the
discussions at that time that the PAYGO rules were to deal with
deficits and to deal with off-budget potential surpluses. But
no one envisioned how the PAYGO rules would work when we had
on-budget surpluses when we passed this in the 1990's.
You raise a good question, and that is the point I tried to
cover in my direct testimony. How should we handle on-budget
surpluses? If you think these provisions--that we need more
budget discipline, come in with a suggestion. But I don't think
anyone on this committee is suggesting that every dollar of on-
budget surplus must be used for deficit reduction. I don't
think anyone is suggesting that. That is what PAYGO would tell
us. I don't think that what is being said to us.
Mr. McDermott. You are saying that now that we have a
surplus, we can loosen up on the PAYGO rules. Because the CBO
gave us a letter in 1997 saying that the PAYGO applied to the
on-budget surplus as well. When the task force----
Mr. Cardin. When did they give you that letter?
Mr. McDermott. October 29, 1997.
Mr. Cardin. They gave you a letter that PAYGO rules apply
to on-budget surplus? Who gave you that?
Mr. McDermott. OMB. You are saying now that we have a
surplus we don't have to be so tight with the PAYGO.
Mr. Cardin. I am saying the PAYGO rules will not work for
on-budget surplus. If we do not change the budget rules, we
will be waiving PAYGO on the use of the budget surplus in every
Congress. We will not adhere to the PAYGO rules for on-budget
surplus. That is clearly the President's intent, it is clearly
the Republican leadership's intent, and I would suggest it is
also the intent of the Democrats in the House and Senate.
Mr. Nussle. If I could just add, part of our purpose in
adding this in here in a little bit more realistic way was
actually to extend PAYGO, because, as you know, it expires. We
thought that part of the reason we found ourselves in a surplus
is because we had some of that discipline, but we wanted to
extend it in a responsible way. I don't know if--I know that
doesn't entirely get to your point, but it does leave open the
question of whether--of how that surplus can be spent.
It is just as likely that a Congress, depending on who is
in the majority, as the gentleman clearly stated, that that
surplus would be spent for spending--used for spending, any
more than it would be used for tax cuts.
Again, depending on who is in the White House, that
discussion would have to happen, under our joint resolution, in
order for that final determination to be made. Otherwise, it is
not used for anything. If there is a train wreck, it is not
used for anything.
So all we are saying is if there is a vacuum or--if there
is a vacuum, we know how it is done. But if we can create an
agreement between the Congress and the President, let's at
least get Social Security off the table. The rest of it, let's
have a good discussion about it. Like minds may disagree--or
great minds may disagree. Like minds would agree, but great
minds might disagree. But at least let's have that separate
from an automatic process that would direct where that goes.
Mr. McDermott. You want to not take Medicare off. You would
take Social Security off but not Medicare?
Mr. Nussle. Part of that is because we knew there was more
direct opportunity to use that surplus for Medicare than the
Social Security Trust Fund.
Mr. Minge. If I may also address the question you raised,
Jim, the problems that we maintain under the PAYGO rules are
just as apt to arise out of an expansion of the entitlement
program if there is a surplus. That program may cost more than
anticipated, or it may be that our other government costs would
be more and we would not have the surplus we hoped for when we
enacted the entitlement expansion. That would trigger the
sequestration. So this can come from both directions.
From what I have seen in this body, I think that people are
just as much tempted to expand entitlement programs as they are
to pass tax cuts.
Mr. McDermott. So Medicare would get so big it would just
take up the surplus and therefore would trigger a cut on
itself?
Mr. Minge. Or on the whole budget. A scenario of an
expansion of an entitlement program, just like a tax cut
triggering a sequestration because of the budget problems, I
think is something that haunts us. It is not just one way, it
is both ways under this. I don't think any of us would be
comfortable with the sequestration for the reasons you
mentioned. So the sequestration is only a viable option to
those that would like to bring the temple down on top of us.
Hopefully, there are not a majority in Congress that are of
that perspective.
I think the point you are raising and that Mr. Spratt
raised, which is the same point, just earlier here, is one that
we ought to go through and see if we can't improve this product
so that it is best designed to deal with the type of
eventuality that you are asking about. I think it is a valid
point, and I think we ought to strengthen this to try to meet
it as best we possibly can.
Mr. McDermott. Mr. Chairman, may I have one yes and no
question?
Mr. Chambliss. Just one.
Mr. McDermott. Do I understand that the chairman of the
Budget Committee will decide what an emergency is?
Mr. Nussle. No.
Mr. McDermott. No. Who is it?
Mr. Nussle. It is first going to be based on a statutory
definition.
Mr. McDermott. OK. We are going to define an emergency.
Mr. Cardin. Within the 5-year average.
Mr. Nussle. But that is an important point. I mean, no one
person is going to hold that----
Mr. McDermott. I want to be chairman.
Mr. Nussle. Don't we all?
Mr. Chambliss. Mr. Knollenberg.
Mr. Knollenberg. Thank you very much.
Gentleman, I appreciated all of your testimony, Jim, Ben
and David. I realize the work you went through, some of it is
thankless, and you have come up with a process, most of which I
support, but there are a couple of things I don't support.
One of those is the lockbox, and my concern there, very
briefly, is that I don't know how you can write that language
to give you the proper implementation. But perhaps you are
wiser than I, and if you are, fine.
Let me go to the provision I am bothered by more greatly
than the lockbox, the automatic CR. I know there is an aura
about the automatic CR that suggests we don't have to do
anything, we can just put it on automatic pilot and everything
will be fine. But, you know, no matter how well written an
automatic CR would be, you still have some problems along the
way.
For example, you have problems with special cases, like the
census, research, construction projects. Then there is national
defense.
In practice, this CR prevents Congress from being able to
make any changes to any departments or programs. Because of
this, because of the reality of this automatic CR, I think that
it impacts what we can do in appropriations.
I happen to sit on both committees. It takes away some of
the resolve of the Appropriations Committee if they know they
don't have to worry about a shutdown. But it doesn't get the
work done. Our backbone isn't straight. We become weak.
In fact, I think, Ben, I have heard you speak to this and I
think some others, including Congressman Shays. I believe we
give the President, whomever it is, a Republican or a Democrat,
more leverage, with an automatic CR. I think the President
would probably rather have last year's funding levels or an
omnibus bill where the administration can get more of what they
want than if Congress has the power to deal with each
appropriations bill and come up, if they can, with a solution
to each and every one. If you look back over history, that is
not always possible, I know.
I am concerned about the real effect of a CR, because I
think it might prolong negotiations between the administration
and Congress. And this business of not being in a must-pass
mode, those of us on the Appropriations Committee I think know,
turns over a huge amount of power to the administration,
whichever party happens to be in power.
The other thing, I know there are many concerns that people
have about the effects of a government shutdown, probably our
party more than the Democratic Party. But government shutdowns
can be avoided. They can be avoided without an automatic CR.
There is a thing called a clean CR. Prior shutdowns have not
been over appropriations issues, but they have been over
extraneous issues. We don't have to mention them. You all know
what they are.
Short-term CRs, if written cleanly, can be the vehicle we
need. So I would like to have a response from any one of you. I
know, Ben, you talked about it; and, David, you did as well. Do
you see this in this fashion? Do you see the CR as being a
strengthener?
Obviously, I have made my point clear. I would like to have
your thoughts.
Mr. Nussle. It is interesting, because I know you have an
appropriator's perspective on this, and that is one that none
of us at the table here have. So, obviously, we have to defer
to your judgment and the judgment of other appropriators on how
best to manage your committee.
I have heard--I have had an opportunity to talk with
Chairman Young and, as you know, we have had an opportunity to
discuss this as well. It is going to be impossible for me to
sell to you as appropriator to the Appropriations Committee
that this will solve all the problems. I don't think anything
can.
It is interesting, though. I think that one of the areas
that is being missed by the appropriators is the perspective of
the fact that the CR is looming all year long, as opposed to
just in the last 11th hour. Typically, what happens now, as you
know, is a continuing resolution comes in at the 11th hour.
Because all of a sudden at the 11th hour, almost the 12th hour,
you discover you can't get your work done. A CR, clean or
otherwise, is rolled out, and a few days or a week is granted.
If you know at the beginning of the process, all the way in
the beginning of the process, that you have a CR at the end, I
wonder how that would change the dynamic?
It is because of that that we put this in here, because we
felt that was different than just trying to get your work done
in the 11th hour, which is how a CR is used now. The way it is
used under this scenario is it suggests failure. It suggests
that the only way you get to a CR at the end of the process is
if first the joint resolution failed, meaning the President
didn't come to Congress or vice versa, that the minority and
majority and the Budget Committee in Congress didn't come
together, that the 302s were unrealistic, that the
appropriation bills were unrealistic, there was no discussion
with the administration, and so on. And all of a sudden at the
end of the year there is a train wreck, and you knew it.
Because it started off on the wrong foot, different from now
when it is the 11th hour and you roll it out. That changes the
dynamic I think.
Mr. Knollenberg. If you were to follow and succeed in each
step of the process you just outlined, we wouldn't be in the
position of having a train wreck on our back. So I am saying to
you that that is aside from the fact that you put the CR into
the bill, because now I think it becomes a trip wire to say,
well, we don't have to worry too much about it. It is July.
September is coming. Now we don't have to do anything because
we have that automatic CR there.
By the way, I am going to support this through, and I think
you know that, but I just have some concerns. I think it will
reach proportions of debate on the floor at some point. I can't
give you an idea what the future will bring, but we ought to
look very carefully at what we are doing here. I don't want to
give any leverage to the President, whoever it is. We are the
legislative body. I don't want to create a train wreck either.
But, frankly, I think we are dangerously close to talking
about those things by giving up ground, high ground, as Members
of Congress.
Mr. Chambliss. Mr. Price.
Mr. Price. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to thank my colleagues for being here this morning
and for the good work that has gone into this. I understand
from the perspective of the discussions you have engaged in for
months now that there has been a lot of cooperation, a lot of
give and take and that this is a product in which you have some
pride. So in asking you some critical questions, I don't mean
to denigrate the overall product. But naturally, in a setting
like this, we do focus on things we see that might be
problematic.
I want to ask you to think as experienced politicians this
morning about what some of these provisions might do to the
dynamics of the budget process. In thinking about this, it
might be instructive to recall our experience with the line
item veto. I think as the line item veto was enacted and people
anticipated where it might lead, it slowly dawned on a number
of people that the line item veto was really not so much about
budgeting so much as it was about political power, and that far
more important than any specific instances in which the line
item veto might be used, the far greater impact was likely to
be on anticipated reactions and on the kinds of powers the
President in particular would have at the front end of the
budgeting process; and the whole dynamic of the way budgeting
and appropriations work would likely be influenced by the
President having this power.
Similarly, I think a number of the provisions in this
proposed reform call for that kind of analysis. Let me just
mention three briefly and ask you to pick and choose what you
would like to comment on and tell me if you think I am wrong
about this or off base.
First, we have had some discussion already, Mr. Spratt
brought this up, about the way the discretionary spending
baseline is dealt with in the legislation. The current baseline
assumes discretionary spending will be at its capped level, of
course, while caps are in place, and then if new caps are not
in place, it will grow with inflation. That, according to the
present timetable, would be in 2003.
This legislation assumes that if new caps are not in place,
that it will be frozen at the 2002 level unless and until new
caps are enacted.
My question is, what kind of temptations does that provide
and what kind of incentives might it provide?
One thinks about tax cuts that might assume that a greater
surplus is going to be out there than under the current
baseline assumptions. A temptation might exist to enact tax
cuts that would be in place permanently, of course, and would
eat up that projected surplus.
One thinks about possible gaming to block enactment of new
caps by people who might have a tax cut agenda or other sorts
of agendas. This may not be as neutral a provision as some have
suggested. What kind of incentives does it provide?
The second area is the automatic CR. What kind of
disincentives does that provide for coming to agreement, for
either those who are resistant to substantial increases in
spending or, for that matter, those who are resistant to
substantial decreases in spending? Or those who are opposing
new priorities?
If the enactment of a regular appropriations bill would no
longer be essential, then a Senate minority, for example, could
use the filibuster to lock in the status quo on a given
appropriations bill. The President could do the same thing with
his veto. What might be the dynamics of the process with that
automatic CR looming out at the end of the fiscal year?
Then, finally, let me ask you to reflect as experienced
politicians on what difference it might make to require
presidential approval of the budget resolution? We have all
talked in past years about how desirable it would be for the
President to have more of a sense of ownership of the budget
resolution, the budget process, at an early point. But this
process that you have put out here says appropriations couldn't
go forward without that approval. I know there is a fast track
if the approval doesn't come, but there would be a lot of
pressures to secure presidential approval. What incentive would
that provide, maybe on both sides, to hold this process
hostage?
And in spite of the kind of things you have said about
keeping this budget resolution clean, I think, inevitably,
reconciliation-type provisions and agreements and
understandings would be moved to the front of the process. Do
you think that is a legitimate concern?
Those are three areas where it seems to me we need to think
about the political dynamics. I would like to hear your
reflections.
Mr. Cardin. Let me thank you for your thoughtful questions,
David, some of which I have already commented on.
The budget resolution is limited by statute what we put in
there. If that is not strong enough, let's put in stronger
language. I share that concern and Jim Nussle does also, and
that is why we limited it to the broad outline and the
potential for the Ways and Means Committee to bring forward a
debt limit.
The budget resolution I think makes us stronger. Talk about
the line item veto, right now the President can hold all of his
cards, we have to put ours on the table, and we meet with him
in October or November, whatever the month, and we basically
concede to whatever he wants. That is what happened when we
have not had an agreement between the Congress and the White
House on a budget document. So I think the President here has
the upper hand.
Having a budget resolution that is signed by the President
engages the White House earlier, gives us a more honest attempt
to use our procedures, whether it is in the Appropriations
Committee or in the Ways and Means Committee or in the
Agriculture Committee, to do our work and each of us to have
impact in what is in the budget. We don't have that today. We
don't have that today. So it only makes us stronger.
In regards to the CR, we have had a lengthy discussion on
it. I think the automatic CR can rise or fall on its own. It is
a separate issue within our recommendations. Jim and I have
talked about it. I think we should make a decision whether we
think it is good or bad and move on to the other issues. People
just disagree as to whether it is going to be positive or
negative. I have already expressed my view on it.
In regards to the baseline, we talked about that before.
Our intentions were very clear and that we expect that the
budget resolution will reestablish the caps. We expect that,
and we assume that. Now, if you are uncomfortable that Congress
may not adopt caps and then use the projected surplus for
irresponsible tax cuts or irresponsible spending on
entitlements, if you don't have confidence in future
Congresses, if you are that suspicious, let's figure out some
additional provisions to put in to protect ourselves in the
future from doing that.
I personally don't have that fear. I have a little bit of
confidence we are going to do what is right. We are not going
to do something that is totally irresponsible in that regard.
Knowing full well that the budget caps that are currently to
expire will need to be adjusted upwards, we are not going to
have freezes in the future. It is not realistic for defense
spending, for non-defense discretionary spending, we all know
that. And we assume the first budget resolution for 2002 would
deal with the caps for the future; and, therefore, we would not
have the problem you are referring to.
Mr. Nussle. One of the interesting things that comes out of
this is part of the reason why I think there was so much
interest in just having a freeze at that point, is there was a
real desire, sincere desire, that we get away from, and it
happens on both sides, we get away from this automatic nature
to spending. That there is an automatic inflationary device in
there that suggests that if it is changed from that
inflationary device, if programs change, if they are adjusted,
somehow you are cutting something, somehow--so we wanted to try
and again sincerely take that out. But I think you raise a good
point.
The opposite argument you are making is then others could
have the suspicion that it is going to tax cuts. That is fine.
I think there is room for us to make an adjustment there. We
just didn't want to make an assumption that had not
substantively been made yet. That was the only reason we had
that freeze. We thought that was also maybe a mechanism to help
move the budget process along, because freezes are not good to
either side, as much as some might suspect that.
On the issue of mischief, and Mr. Spratt brought this up,
because this is a joint resolution, therefore the force of law,
would people try mischief on this, riders of some sort? It was
a good point, and I think on the House side we see that because
of our particular rules.
I am told, and I am far from any expert on Senate rules,
but I am told that because of the changes we made in our law
here, in the proposal we are moving forward, that if it is
attempted that Senate rules will preclude that from occurring
on the floor, either through filibuster or points of order.
I am not going to try to compete--there are a couple on the
staff back there smiling or shaking their heads. I don't know.
But my point is I think the Senate may be a backstop here
automatically. But if it is not, let's look for maybe a
mechanism.
Because I agree with you. This should be what we are
asking. It is a budget, and that is it. And I agree.
On the CR, we have made those points. The only thing I
would add to the points we have already made is if a majority
in this Congress suggests that a status quo is what we ought to
have, then that is what we ought to have. It is unfortunate
that that happens, because I don't think anybody--think most of
our constituents would suggest, whether they are for cutting or
changing or whatever, most would be suggesting that status quo
is not good. So I think there still is a mechanism in there
that moves that way.
The final point I would make, and you brought this up in
the very beginning about joint resolutions. You were talking
about the unintended consequences of the line item veto. The
only thing I would add to this is that it is not just the
President that is brought into this process. The minority party
is also brought into the process, whoever that is.
My point is that, as you know on your side of the aisle, we
can bring a budget to this committee, we can vote on it, we can
pass it, we can railroad it, you can have 30 or so amendments--
maybe you have heard of this scenario before. Thirty or so
amendments are defeated automatically on a party line vote, and
you get no say in the process.
In what we are proposing, Mr. Spratt and the rest of the
Democrats in this instance, and that may change in the future,
would have to be brought in. You couldn't just railroad a bill
automatically without any discussion. In order for it to be a
joint resolution, at least I think there would be more
safeguards now under our bill than there would be now.
I just throw that out. It is not just the President that is
brought into this process. I believe the minority party would
also be brought this. Just another observation.
Mr. Price. Good. I think a subtext of a lot of these issues
is the question of whether, the minority party aside, they
would give an advantage to a determined minority, determined to
work its will. I do think we need to work that through.
Mr. Chambliss. Mr. Gutknecht.
Mr. Gutknecht. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just really
believe that this may be one of the most important things this
Congress could pass this year, particularly after this week.
I was embarrassed, and frankly I hope all Members were
embarrassed, by this emergency supplemental bill and the way it
was put together and the things that were tucked into that
bill. I was embarrassed last year at the way the Congress ended
with the omnibus bill.
It seems to me we all lose when that is the process and
that is the way it works. I think we all are diminished, and I
think the respect for this institution, the Federal Government,
our entire budget process, it seems to me we are all diminished
when that happens. So I really do believe that it is time, and
I thank you all.
I think I will do everything I can to see that this thing
ultimately at least gets passed by the House, and hopefully the
Senate, because I think this is a very, very important thing. I
agree with you, David, it is important it was done on a
bipartisan basis. You can talk about campaign finance reform,
but until you get Republicans and Democrats actually talking
together, then it is more or less just political posturing.
This is an important issue.
What it really is, and I think we have to get back to
focus, what this is, it sort of is like setting up a set of
rules, Marquis of Queensberry type rules, of how this whole
negotiation process is going to work. And it is all about
negotiations.
I know there is a lot of concern about who is going to have
an advantage, disadvantage, and whatever. I come back to a
story, one of the great negotiators of the 20th century was a
guy by the name of Al Capone. Al Capone said you can achieve
more with a soft voice and a loaded gun than you can with a
soft voice. And I think there is too much worrying about who
has got the biggest gun in this negotiation.
But I think we forget at the end of the day what happens at
the end of September when we approach the end of the fiscal
year, the beginning of the next fiscal year, we both get out
our guns. But what we do is we hold--the people who we are
putting the guns to the heads of are people that work for the
Federal Government, honest, decent hard working people who work
for the Federal Government, and people who depend on the
Federal Government for some level of service. And we say you
know, if you don't do what we want, we are going to shoot this
guy.
In my opinion, that is reckless, that is irresponsible,
that is not the way the process should work, and I just have to
congratulate you.
The other thing that amazes me, some of the comments when
you started, even though you spent all of this time on this
project, and there is another old expression that ideas and
children are brilliant when they are your own. And to hear
criticism of what you have been working on now for over a year,
I think has got to take a certain kind of character to do that.
And then offer, say if you have better ideas, we will
listen to you, I hope we all will keep open minds and realize
this is nothing more than setting up a new set of rules by
which the negotiation process will go forward and bringing the
executive branch into that discussion early as we found until
1997 with the balanced budget agreement, yielded some very
beneficial results, not just for the executive branch, not just
for the Congress, but for the American people.
So I hope that we can minimize some of the partisan
differences on this. I pledge from my perspective to do
whatever I can to help you. I thank you.
I don't have any particular questions to ask, because you
have done an excellent job of explaining it from my
perspective. There will be questions; there are concerns.
You know, if we wait until every single objection is
completely responded to, we are never going to do anything and
we are going to wind up right where we have always been at the
end of September. And we are going to look bad. In some
respects, the administration is going to look bad. And the
American people look at this, and say there must be a better
way. Thank you for offering a better way.
Mr. Chambliss. Mr. Collins.
Mr. Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I regret that I had
to leave the committee prior to listening to your testimony and
your explanation of what you are trying to do.
I can take a few minutes and have taken a few minutes to
review the bill that you are proposing. I think it is long
overdue to reform the budget process. I commend you for the
work you have done. I pledge my support to move forward in
reforming this system and with an open mind.
If there are, and I agree with you, if someone has a better
idea they want to inject in the process as we go, let's hear it
and decide if it is a better idea. But we appreciate the work
you have done and look forward to working with you in the
future to move this forward.
Chairman Kasich [presiding]. I want to thank the panel--
yes?
Mr. Nussle. Could I make one final observation? I want to
again thank you and Mr. Spratt for appointing the task force. I
would just point out to the members of the committee and
Members of the House that part of the reason why we were
appointed, if you recall, is that we were in an era, a few
months, a few years, where we had ad hoc budget reform measures
coming to the floor, piecemeal.
All of a sudden somebody would have a, hey, I know kind of
idea. Let's try this to rein in the budget or change the
process. Part of the reason you appointed us was to gather all
those ideas together.
So all I would say in conclusion is that we have gathered
those ideas together. I would hope that we move something
forward, if for no other reason than to prevent what Mr. Price
was suggesting. With ad hoc proposals coming to the floor with
unintended consequences being the result, we have tried to put
this together, it is not perfect. We hope that you will
continue to work with us, and we appreciate the hearing that
you have given us today.
Chairman Kasich. Thank you very much. I hope you all stay
for Mr. Lew. We will now ask Mr. Lew to come up and proceed
with his testimony.
I would like to welcome our witness. Jack, it is all yours.
The floor is yours
STATEMENT OF HONORABLE JACOB J. LEW, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF
MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET
Mr. Lew. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I submitted a statement
for the record which I hope will be included in the record, but
I would like to just begin with a few brief summary remarks.
I would like to join the Members who commended the efforts
of the task force to look at these very difficult questions in
a thoughtful way. The fact that we disagree with the
conclusions they have reached in no way suggests that we don't
have a lot of respect for the effort that they have gone
through.
I would like to begin by saying that the Budget Enforcement
Act has worked. I think back to 1997, to the hours and weeks
that the chairman, the ranking member and many of us spent
together; to me that is proof that the current system has
worked. It has provided a basis for resolving differences and
for moving forward with fiscal discipline and with policy that
has bridged differences that began as very large.
However, I look at the proposed changes that are in the
task force report, and I am troubled by a number of them, as
set forth in H.R. 853.
First of all, the PAYGO rules. The PAYGO rules have worked
very well since 1990, and I think it would be a mistake to
eliminate the discipline that they have imposed on the process.
The PAYGO rules are most important not at the moment that
there is a budget negotiation. They are most important in
between. They are most important in maintaining fiscal
discipline so that at the moment when large decisions are made,
they can be made in a balanced way, taking into account the
full consequence of the effect of those decisions. That is what
happened in 1997, and that was I think a good thing. The
Balanced Budget Act was good policy and it was consistent with
the process set up by PAYGO.
Eliminating PAYGO at a time of surplus invites a series of
decisions that I think we would look back on and regret. We
would look back and regret decisions that treated the surplus
as a certainty at a moment when estimates turned out not to be
correct, and it didn't appear.
The mechanism in the bill I think is very troubling. It
takes a system which now is based on scoring a bill at the time
it is passed and substitutes for it what is really, in a way, a
throw back to the fixed deficit approach of the original Gramm-
Rudman-Hollings law. Rather than basing our judgment on what is
within the four corners of proposed legislation, we would be
entering onto the books a negative PAYGO entry. So if our
estimates turn out to be wrong, when we get out to the future,
we would have to do an across-the-board cut. And in all
likelihood--the reason we would be wrong is because the economy
had taken a downturn, which would be the very worst time to
have an across-the-board cut. It is not a workable mechanism.
The automatic continuing resolution is something we have
debated over the years. The President has vetoed it in the
past. The notion of an automatic continuing resolution I think
is very troubling.
First, it is policy that doesn't make any sense. There is
no rationale for continuing at last year's level rather than
making decisions about this year's level. In the earlier
question and answer period, some of the best examples were
cited. You look at an example like the census, and it is a
perfect example of how a continuing resolution can't possibly
deal with the year-to-year changes. Every 10 years there is a
spike in census costs. An automatic continuing resolution
couldn't take account of that.
You look at programs where participation is based on the
number of people who are eligible, and one year's numbers don't
suggest next year's needs.
There is really no substitute for doing the work each year.
We have engaged over the last few years in some very difficult
debates. But I would note in each case, we did reach a
conclusion. It is only in 1995 that there was a government
shutdown. For the preceding period of time and the period of
time since, there has not been, and there should never be
another shutdown. I don't think the right comparison is between
government shutdown and an automatic continuing resolution. The
right outcome is to work through the legislation and to resolve
the issues.
There are a number of other issues in the legislation which
I have addressed in some detail in my prepared statement, but
in the interest of time, I think I will stop there and be
delighted to answer any questions that you might have.
[The prepared statement of Jacob J. Lew follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Jacob J. Lew, Director, Office of Management
and Budget
Mr. Chairman, Representative Spratt, and members of the committee:
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before your committee today
to discuss H.R. 853, the ``Comprehensive Budget Process Reform Act of
1999,'' as introduced by Representatives Nussle and Cardin on February
25, 1999.
I would like to begin by emphasizing that the Budget Enforcement
Act (BEA) has worked. The BEA has imposed an essential discipline on
discretionary spending by means of enforceable discretionary spending
caps. And the statutory pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) requirements have ensured
that new mandatory spending and new tax cuts are paid for with
offsetting spending reductions and revenue increases.
In short, the BEA's spending caps and PAYGO requirements have, over
the last decade, helped reduce and eliminate the deficit and produce a
surplus for the first time in 29 years. These tools for fiscal
discipline, together with the 1993 and 1997 Budget Reconciliation Acts,
have been key to our success.
Moreover, it should be noted that the PAYGO rules have been
instrumental in the President's commitments to ``save Social Security
first'' and to strengthen Medicare. By requiring that new spending and
tax cuts be fully paid for, PAYGO has effectively prevented the
spending of projected surpluses before the solvency of Social Security
and Medicare have been secured. In addition, PAYGO has started us down
the road toward substantial debt reduction.
We have a process that has worked. Before we make any changes to
the current budget rules, we need to ask why the changes are needed,
and to consider very carefully all of their consequences.
H.R. 853 would make several far-reaching changes to the current
budget process. Transforming the Concurrent Budget Resolution into a
Joint Budget Resolution presented to the President for signature, is a
concept which this Administration has in the past supported.
However, as I will explain, the Administration is strongly opposed
to the bill's serious weakening of the PAYGO rules and its
establishment of an automatic continuing resolution. In addition, we
have concerns about changes to the emergency procedures, the
appropriations ``lockbox'' and other provisions in the bill.
I. Repealing PAYGO in an Era of Surpluses
H.R. 853 would effectively repeal PAYGO in an era of surpluses. It
would amend the BEA to permit on-budget surpluses to be spent on tax
cuts or mandatory spending increases, without pay-as-you-go offsets. To
understand fully the implications of this change, a brief review of the
PAYGO rules will be useful.
Background.--The Budget Enforcement Act of 1990 set up separate
enforcement mechanisms for: (1) discretionary spending; and (2)
revenues and direct spending. These mechanisms--annual caps on
discretionary spending and a pay-as-you-go requirement for revenues and
direct spending--replaced the largely ineffective Gramm-Rudman-Hollings
regime of declining annual deficit targets.
The PAYGO process originally required that changes in direct
spending and revenues, combined, not increase the deficit in any year
through FY 1995. The Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 (OBRA-93)
extended this requirement through FY 1998, and the 1997 Balanced Budget
Act (BBA) further extended PAYGO for all legislation enacted through
2002.
PAYGO applies not to each new law individually, but to the
cumulative effect of all new laws enacted since a designated starting
point. The original starting point was all legislation enacted
subsequent to the 1990 BEA. The current starting point for PAYGO
calculations is legislation enacted since the BBA in 1997. OMB is
required to maintain a ``PAYGO scorecard'' of both deficit and savings
effects from all direct spending and revenue legislation enacted since
the BBA and through 2002. Deficit effects of such legislation are
calculated for the budget year and each of the ensuing 4 years (so that
PAYGO will be enforced through 2006, for legislation which is enacted
in 2002.)
OMB enforces the PAYGO requirements through ``sequestration.'' If
at the end of a congressional session, the scorecard shows a combined
net deficit increase (or surplus reduction) for the fiscal years just-
beginning and just-ended, OMB is required to implement across-the-board
cuts in all non-exempt direct spending programs in amounts sufficient
to eliminate the deficit increase (or restore the surplus). These
across-the-board cuts are called sequestration. About 80 percent of
outlays associated with direct spending programs are statutorily exempt
from automatic sequestration cuts. Exempt programs include Social
Security, Federal retirement and disability programs, net interest,
certain low-income programs, veterans' compensation and pensions, and
regular State unemployment insurance benefits.
Under the automatic sequestration of non-exempt programs, the
sequester calculations are made so that two programs with automatic
spending increases (COLAs)--the special milk program and vocational
rehabilitation--are cut first, followed by two special-rule programs
(Stafford loans, formerly called guaranteed student loans, and foster
care and adoption assistance), and then Medicare and the remaining non-
exempt direct spending programs. Automatic cuts in Medicare under PAYGO
are limited to 4 percent, but there is no limit to the cuts which can
be imposed on non-exempt direct spending programs.
The PAYGO requirements apply only to new legislation, not to
changes in spending levels under existing law. For example, the
estimated increase in mandatory spending resulting from a new law that
broadened a beneficiary population would have to be offset, or it would
trigger a sequester. However, if a beneficiary population as defined
under existing law simply grew, the increased spending would not have
to be offset. This is the key to PAYGO's success: it holds people
responsible for legislative changes they can control not for economic
changes beyond their direct control.
Under current law, PAYGO applies whether the Federal Government is
running a deficit or a surplus. Therefore, tax cuts or direct spending
increases that would cause a reduction in on-budget surpluses must be
fully offset, just as legislation causing or increasing on-budget
deficits must be offset.
Title VII of H.R. 853 would fundamentally change current law by
permitting tax cuts or new direct spending legislation to be enacted
without offsets--up to the amount of projected on-budget surpluses. For
example, the bill would permit a large tax cut or more spending to be
enacted without any offsets, as long as the amount of the tax cuts does
not cause or increase an on-budget deficit. This effectively repeals
the pay-as-you-go requirement in an era of surpluses.
The Administration strongly opposes this repeal of the PAYGO rules.
The Administration has proposed a framework for allocating projected
budget surpluses over the next 15 years, but strongly believes that
after Social Security and Medicare have been strengthened the pay-as-
you-go disciplines should continue as they did following OBRA-93 and
the BBA of '97. H.R. 853, however, would set into permanent law the
principle that any amount of projected on-budget surpluses could be
spent on new tax cuts or new direct spending programs without offsets.
To understand the dangers of this approach, consider this year's
Congressional Budget Resolution, H.Con.Res. 68 (Budget Resolution). The
Budget Resolution calls for a tax cut of $778 billion over the next ten
fiscal years--which amounts to nearly all of the currently projected
on-budget surpluses for that period. The PAYGO repeal called for in
H.R. 853 would permit enactment of these permanent, and very expensive,
tax cuts without any offsetting revenues or spending cuts. The tax cut
would create large negative balances on the PAYGO scorecard for each of
the subsequent years on the assumption that these negative balances
will be offset by the actual surpluses when the time comes.
Now consider what would happen if the economy grows a bit more
slowly than is currently projected, and the on-budget surpluses over
the next 10 years, in the absence of legislation, turn out to be half
of what is currently projected. The tax cuts would already be in
permanent law, but the surpluses which were supposed to finance the tax
cuts would not have materialized. We could face a net deficit big
enough to trigger a 100 percent PAYGO sequestration. That means that
Medicare spending would be automatically cut by 4 percent; spending for
all of the non-exempt mandatory spending programs--child support
enforcement, social services block grants, veterans education and
readjustment benefits, CCC, crop insurance, and others would be
eliminated; and there might still be some deficit remaining. Or, to
avoid such a sequestration, Congress and the Administration would be
forced to slash selected mandatory and discretionary spending programs.
One of the principal reasons we need to maintain the fiscal discipline
of the PAYGO rules during a time of surplus, as well as during deficit
periods, is the relative uncertainty of budget forecasting.
The PAYGO rules have been and continue to be a pillar of fiscal
discipline. They have saved the surpluses for Social Security and
Medicare, and have reduced our public debt. We urge the committee to
maintain this discipline.
II. Automatic Continuing Resolution
Title VI of H.R. 853 would establish an automatic continuing
resolution (auto-CR) which would continue funding at the previous
year's levels, in the absence of regular appropriations. Similar
proposals have been under discussion in the past, particularly since
the government shutdowns of 1995. The government shutdowns during the
104th Congress were unnecessary and very costly, and--as the President
has said--should never happen again.
However, an auto-CR is an irrational and unworkable response.
Congress should not undermine the ability to respond to a changing
world by substituting an automatic funding mechanism for the hard work
and judgment that results from bicameral action and presidential
approval.
In addition, under this bill, auto-CRs would last for the whole
year, unless replaced by regular appropriations. Full year CRs could
therefore trigger a sequester if they result in spending levels greater
than the caps of that year.
An auto-CR could disrupt the funding of government programs in
other ways. For example, an auto-CR could be a powerful incentive for
filibusters in the Senate. A minority of 41 in the Senate could impose
a freeze on selected programs defense or non-defense--simply by
filibustering the relevant appropriations bills. Alternatively, a
minority of 41 could prevent program reductions, where the savings are
needed to fund higher priorities. In fact, such a minority could
perpetuate programs with no review or reform whatsoever.
In short, it is the Congress' constitutional responsibility to make
decisions about appropriate funding levels for the government's
activities. Putting appropriations on auto-pilot would be a mistake.
I would remind the committee that in 1997, the President vetoed an
emergency flood supplemental because it attempted to enact an auto-CR
that would have undermined the appropriations process.
III. Emergency Spending
Title II of H.R. 853 would repeal the BEA ``emergency'' procedures.
Those procedures currently provide for the upward adjustment of the
discretionary spending caps to accommodate emergency spending. For this
purpose, spending is deemed an ``emergency'' when it is jointly
designated as such by the President and the Congress. (Though seldom
used, the BEA also permits designation of direct spending and revenue
provisions as emergencies; in such cases, the costs of such legislation
are not placed on the PAYGO scorecard.)
H.R. 853 would replace the current-law emergency procedures with a
requirement that both the President's Budget and the Congressional
Budget Resolution include a ``reserve'' for emergencies that is not
less than the average for emergency spending in the preceding 5 years.
Use of the reserve fund is made contingent upon the Budget
Committee Chairmen certifying that the spending meets a new statutory
definition of ``emergency.'' ``Emergency'' is defined in the bill as a
``situation that requires new BA and outlays...for the prevention or
mitigation of, or response to, loss of life or property, or a threat to
national security; and is unanticipated"; the bill defines
``unanticipated'' as ``sudden, . . . urgent, . . . unforeseen, . . .
and temporary.''
In addition, under H.R. 853, any legislation which proposes
emergency spending that would exceed the emergency reserve would be
automatically referred to the Budget Committees for not more than 3
days. The Budget Committees would determine whether to report an
amendment exempting the emergency spending from the discretionary caps
or PAYGO requirement, as appropriate.
H.R. 853, as introduced, does not address the issue of whether the
discretionary spending caps would be adjusted upward to levels
sufficient to accommodate inclusion of an ``emergency reserve.'' If
there is an insufficient upward adjustment, the fencing off of funds
for this emergency reserve would make already extremely tight spending
caps that much tighter. The Administration would strongly oppose a
significant tightening of the discretionary caps.
But even if there is an intention to fully adjust the caps for such
a reserve, the Administration would still have concerns about the
advisability of this proposal in its current form. Consider Table 1,
which shows emergency spending in each year since enactment of the BEA.
As the table shows, emergency spending is by its very nature inherently
unpredictable. If an emergency reserve is created, based on a 5-year
average, it could end up being too little to cover emergencies in some
years; while in other years, it would end up being too much, which
would divert scarce resources from other needs.
TABLE 1.--EMERGENCY SPENDING FY 1991-FY 1999
[Budget authority, in millions]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FY 1999
FY 1991 FY 1992 FY 1993 FY 1994 FY 1995 FY 1996 FY 1997 FY 1998 \1\
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Desert Shield/Storm........... 44,253 14,063 758 4 0 0 0 0 0
Legislative Branch............ 7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 224
Judicial Branch............... 0 0 0 0 16 0 10 0 13
Agriculture (discretionary)... 0 226 190 623 364 333 738 215 133
Agriculture (mandatory)....... 0 2,185 1,450 130 1,000 0 0 0 5,744
Commerce...................... 0 87 110 235 103 26 76 0 54
Defense....................... 0 0 0 1,497 2,447 982 2,073 2,832 7,027
Education..................... 0 102 120 245 0 0 0 0 4
Energy........................ 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 208 549
Health and Human Services..... 0 106 0 417 121 197 247 160 406
Housing and Urban Development. 0 24 420 862 222 50 250 250 142
Interior...................... 0 69 99 53 5 214 393 48 93
Justice....................... 8 57 0 0 114 0 231 0 74
Labor......................... 0 500 85 33 0 0 0 0 20
State......................... 49 6 0 30 0 0 49 0 1,715
Transportation................ 0 91 131 1,342 -76 300 951 269 582
Treasury...................... 9 36 0 0 44 0 153 0 915
Veterans Affairs.............. 0 16 0 116 0 0 0 0 0
Corps of Engineers............ 0 46 175 130 0 165 604 105 103
Environmental Protection 0 0 34 0 0 0 0 0 0
Agency.......................
Executive Office of the 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 43
President....................
Federal Emergency Management 0 4,008 1,735 5,146 3,289 2,282 3,300 1,605 461
Agency.......................
General Services 0 3 0 7 67 0 0 0 18
Administration...............
International Security 850 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Assistance...................
National Aeronautics and Space 0 0 0 21 0 0 0 0 0
Administration...............
Small Business Administration. 0 659 70 1,248 0 225 0 0 66
Social Security Administration 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0
Other......................... 14 0 2 26 0 248 158 19 282
Unreleased Contingent 2,680 ....... ....... ....... ....... ....... ....... ....... ........
Emergency Funding............
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total, Emergency Spending. 45,190 22,284 5,379 12,166 7,716 5,022 9,233 5,711 21,348
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ FY 1999 includes unreleased contingent emergency funding of $2.7 billion.
Moreover, the President, the Congress, and the Nation need to be
able to respond quickly to emergencies whether it is for military and
humanitarian needs in Kosovo, aid to victims of tornadoes, farmers
struggling with low prices, or assistance desperately needed by
hurricane or earthquake victims. The current process, which permits
emergency spending only when it is jointly designated, in law, by the
President and the Congress, can already take months. H.R. 853, by
contrast, would further encumber the process by requiring the Budget
Committees to determine whether particular emergencies meet a rigid
statutory definition. This additional encumbrance is unnecessary and
could have very negative consequences when emergency relief is urgently
needed.
IV. Putting the Squeeze on Appropriations: the Lockbox and Baselines
Title VI of the bill would establish procedures to give Members
offering Floor amendments cutting appropriations the option to allocate
the savings either as offsets for other spending, or as savings to go
into a ``lockbox.'' The lockbox savings would automatically reduce the
Appropriations Committees' 302 allocations; and by operation of
language to be included in the appropriations bills, would also reduce
the statutory caps.
The Administration has concerns about this proposal because it has
the potential to further reduce already tight discretionary spending
caps. In an era of very tight discretionary spending limits, savings
from lower priority appropriations should continue to be available for
higher priorities.
In addition, the lockbox mechanism itself, is unworkable. For
example, a Senator could offer an amendment to reduce funding in a
particular appropriation bill and direct all of the savings to the
lockbox. Even if the House cuts nothing from that bill, H.R. 853
requires that one-half of the Senate's cut would remain in the
lockbox--automatically reducing the 302(a) allocations in the Senate
and in the House. So you could end up with a circumstance where a
Senate amendment has lowered the House Appropriations Committee's
302(a) allocation--contrary to the levels the House had adopted in the
Budget Resolution.
In addition to appropriations being squeezed by a lockbox
mechanism, H.R. 853 purports to mandate that the Congressional Budget
Office (CBO) and OMB use the prior fiscal year's level without
adjustment for inflation as their baselines for projections of
discretionary spending in future years. The results would be that when
estimating future surpluses or deficits, the Congress would be assuming
a hard freeze on discretionary programs, rather than estimating the
inflation-adjusted costs of continuing current services. The result
would be a substantial under-estimate of what it would cost to continue
current government operations and services resulting in more pressure
on discretionary appropriations.
V. Accrual budget for Federal insurance programs
Title VI of the bill mandates budgeting for Federal insurance
programs on the basis of the net present value of the risk assumed in a
given year, instead of the traditional cash basis of payouts minus
premium collections. This approach is generally analogous to budgeting
for credit programs under the Federal Credit Reform Act. The
requirements would apply to deposit insurance, pension guarantees,
flood and crop insurance, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation's
insurance program, and other insurance programs. The bill provides for
several years of experimentation, publication of advisory estimates,
and transparency for the models and data used. In addition, it would
require reports by OMB, CBO, and GAO on the feasibility of risk-assumed
budgeting for insurance programs. It would require the President
actually to base the budgets for insurance programs on risk-assumed
estimates beginning with the FY 2006 budget.
We agree that risk-assumed estimates--if they are reliable and well
understood--would have considerable merit for scoring insurance
programs in the budget. However, the use of this methodology, outside
of the comparatively ordered world of contractual arrangements between
lenders and borrowers, is sufficiently difficult that OMB would oppose
a statutory deadline for its implementation. Estimates for some
programs could change substantially from year to year with shifts in
interest rates and other long-range assumptions. Producing the
estimates would require highly sophisticated estimating models that
neither we nor the private sector have now or are likely to have any
time soon. Whether such models could be developed in time to meet the
requirements of the bill is highly uncertain. While we understand the
bill sponsors' desire to set a firm target date for implementing this
change, we do not believe it is realistic at this time.
VI. Ten-year Limits on Program Authorizations and Entitlements
Title IV of H.R. 853 requires committees to submit schedules for
reauthorizing, within 10 years, all programs in their jurisdiction,
including entitlements. It also prohibits the consideration of new
direct spending programs unless their duration is limited to 10 or
fewer years. And it guarantees Members the right to offer amendments
subjecting proposed entitlements to the appropriations process.
The apparent objective of this title is to limit the enactment of
new entitlement benefits. The Administration believes the right
approach is not to put arbitrary roadblocks in the way of new direct
spending, but to maintain the current law PAYGO rules so that new
direct spending is paid for, and must compete against alternative uses
of available funds. It is highly ironic that H.R. 853 on the one hand
seeks to rein in the creation of new entitlement authority, at the same
time that it repeals the pay-as-you-go requirements when surpluses
exist.
I want to thank the committee for this opportunity to present the
Administration's views on H.R. 853 and would be happy to answer any
questions you may have.
Chairman Kasich. Jack, just one question from me, and that
is the notion that we shouldn't have an automatic CR. What
would you say would the option be? In other words, every time
we get to the end, there is a game of chicken and everybody is
trying to say well, I didn't shut the government down. You say
well, we didn't shut the government down.
Then we go we are not going to shut it down this year, and
you say well, of course, we are not going to shut it down this
year. And then at the very end we pass some lousy bill. What is
wrong with the notion that there be pressure on not just the
Congress? It is interesting.
It shows you how effective Bill Clinton is in
communicating, because I can remember, I have been here a long
time, even though I am so amazingly young looking. But I
remember when the government shutdown when George Bush was
President, and a couple people couldn't get in the Washington
Monument and boy, we couldn't move fast enough to reopen the
government because it was all being blamed on George Bush.
Then when the government shutdown in 1995, President
Clinton was able to make sure that he did a good job of being
able to blame the Congress for shutting down the government.
The fact is though there doesn't appear to be at this point in
time any pressure on the President to reach an agreement unless
it is kind of his way.
Shouldn't there be pressure both on the Congress and on the
President to have some leverage in terms of getting a
settlement? I am not sure this works in my long-term best
interests, but the fact is that it just seems to me as though
there is no pressure on a very able communicating executive,
while all the pressure falls on the Congress.
Mr. Lew. Mr. Chairman, I think that it is easy for that to
be avoided by doing short-term CRs. While there are ongoing
budget negotiations, there is not a need for there to be a
government shutdown if there is an ongoing, even a prolonged
negotiation. It is not a new phenomenon. Short-term CRs go back
decades.
I don't consider it a shameful thing for Congress to pass a
short-term CR during a negotiation. I think the name CR has
gotten sort of a bad name, but it is necessary sometimes to
have stopgap funding to permit differences to be worked out.
I think if the interest is trying to have a more neutral
approach so that both parties, both branches of government,
have an incentive to negotiate, the current system actually has
a lot of very positive attributes.
Chairman Kasich. But the problem is, Jack, let's go back to
the short-term CRs. If we don't give you a short-term CR at the
spending level you want, then you threaten to veto it, the
government gets shutdown.
Mr. Lew. Short-term CRs are very different from automatic
CRs that could potentially become full-year bills. For a short
period of time, there are always anomalies that occur that we
actually have worked through on a collegial basis, so that
short-term CRs have no technical problems. So we don't have
examples of programs where there are irrational results for 2
or 3 weeks. There is actually a fine tradition of making sure
that works.
Chairman Kasich. Irrational results, I guess that is like
irrational exuberance, they are in the eye of the beholder.
Mr. Lew. Unintended consequences is really what I mean. I
mean, there is no desire to have a program reach a crisis, but
because a CR would have that effect, you need to address that.
Chairman Kasich. I got you.
Mr. Lew. The current system is a matter of perspective,
perhaps, but from our perspective, the bills are written by
Congress. We have to be invited into a negotiation. We have a
relatively blunt instrument, and it is an instrument that we
don't like to use.
I think the goal, and I hope most of the Members here
agree, is to work through these differences in a collegial
manner, where neither side wins or loses everything. If the
objective in a negotiation is for one side or the other to lose
completely, you end up with confrontation.
If the attempt is to work out differences, you don't need
automatic CRs. In 1995, I would argue we didn't have a process
problem. We had a strategic difference that was really big; we
had policy issues----
Chairman Kasich. One group wanted to balance the budget,
and the other one didn't. That is right. I am just kidding.
Mr. Lew. We won't relitigate that.
Chairman Kasich. Come on, Jim. Just kidding. But I
understand where you are on this. I just think the current
system really doesn't provide equal leverage. It depends who
the executive is and how effective a communicator the executive
is also. So that is at play.
But to me I think it is not necessarily in either party's
interest to go to last year's spending level, because those
priorities do change. But to me it creates the greatest amount
of leverage. But that, of course, is just a matter of opinion.
Mr. Spratt is recognized.
Mr. Spratt. Mr. Lew, the House Budget Committee report for
the fiscal year 2000 budget resolution has a statement reading
as follows: PAYGO is enforced through a sequestration applied
to all nonexempt entitlement programs. The law is somewhat
unclear whether PAYGO lapses when there is an on-budget
surplus. CBO has hinted that PAYGO would indeed lapse if the
budget was in balance without counting excess Social Security
receipts.
Is that your position now or has it ever been your position
that PAYGO would lapse if we had an on-budget surplus?
Mr. Lew. Mr. Spratt, it has never been our position that
PAYGO would lapse. We have been asked a series of questions
over a number of years and, under different circumstances, have
answered based on the period of time in question. I think the
fact is that some years ago none of us predicted an on-budget
surplus in the 5 year window. All of the discussion was about
unified surplus with an off-budget surplus driving it.
At the moment we were confronted with an on-budget surplus
quite immediately and we were asked the question, we opined
that we believe PAYGO continues to apply. I believe I wrote a
letter to you in April indicating that officially. But we have
informally indicated that on quite a number of occasions as
well.
Mr. Spratt. Mr. Chairman, I would ask unanimous consent
that the letter to me on April 6 from Mr. Lew about the OMB
position on PAYGO be made part of the record.
Chairman Kasich. Without objection.
[The information referred to follows:]
Executive Office of the President,
Office of Management and Budget,
Washington, DC, April 6, 1999.
Hon. John Spratt,
Committee on the Budget, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC.
Dear Representative Spratt: Your staff requested the Office of
Management and Budget's (OMB) opinion with reference to the following
statement in the House Budget Committee Report on the FY 2000 Budget
Resolution:
``PAYGO is enforced through a sequestration applied to all
non-exempt entitlement programs. The law is somewhat unclear
whether PAYGO lapses when there is an on-budget surplus. OMB
has hinted that PAYGO would indeed lapse if the budget was in
balance without counting excess Social Security receipts.''
(H.Rpt. 106-73)
The Report's statement regarding OMB's position is not correct. We
believe that PAYGO does apply when there is an on-budget surplus. We
also concur with the reasoning about legislative content contained in
CBO's October 29, 1997, letter to Chairman Domenici.
If you or your staff have any further questions related to this
issue, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Sincerely,
Jacob J. Lew,
Director.
Mr. Spratt. Mr. Lew, one of the objectives of this bill is
to bring together the executive branch and the Congress sooner
in the process rather than later. We did that in 1997, and that
was the President's very purpose in sort of summoning the
principals on the Budget Committee together to start
negotiating in late February and early March; and culminated in
the balanced budget agreement of 1997.
I think it is objective, but I don't think a joint
resolution necessarily accomplishes that end. Number one, how
do you regard a joint resolution as opposed to a concurrent
resolution, and, number two, do you have any other alternatives
for engaging the executive branch earlier?
I would think you would like to be engaged. You would like
to be invited into the conference committee meetings and things
of this nature at an earlier point so you could affect the
process before it got to the very endgame.
Mr. Lew. I think that it is highly desirable for the two
branches to engage as early as possible. The procedural device
of a joint resolution versus a concurrent resolution is
therefore an interesting one. As you know, my predecessor
endorsed the idea. I will confess to some personal misgivings,
only because I fear that it would slow the process down, and if
you can't reach agreement at the front end, there are real
problems with delaying taking the first steps.
It certainly is something that the executive branch I think
would welcome, being invited into the discussions early. The
notion of a joint resolution is certainly one that is not
troubling in an executive-legislative sense.
The only concern I have, and it doesn't rise to my
objecting to it, is the consequences. If there is an early
negotiation and Congress can't begin its work until very late,
there is a question whether you can catch up. If there is a way
to keep going with some of the steps in the process while you
are working through those differences, I think it would be the
perfect combination.
Last year we saw without a budget resolution that the
appropriation bills could continue to move. I think if you go
to a joint resolution approach, you need to think in terms of
how to keep the process moving. Otherwise you get to September-
October, and there is just an awful lot of work to do.
Certainly from the point of view of sort of a constructive
engagement early, it is very attractive. I personally believe
there is no substitute for the parties wanting to engage. In
1997, it wasn't a matter of process, it was a matter of
commitment on your part, on the Chairman's part, on the
President's part, and comparable participation from the Senate.
And whatever the process, that is what it takes. We have to not
look for clubs, but ways to get together.
Mr. Spratt. I think you struck upon a fundamental point.
When the parties, the President and the Congress, want to
negotiate earlier, there is no barrier that prevents them from
doing it. On the other hand, if you have a barrier that
requires us to come together and spend a certain amount of time
working on a CR, which neither party is ready to compromise
enough to really put over the top, it could badly delay the
process.
Mr. Lew. That is a concern. I mean, the system has a
tendency to slow down more easily than to speed up. Having
begun my career here in the House, it is something I am
particularly sensitive to. If you don't make a certain amount
of progress by the summer, there is just not enough time in the
fall to catch up.
Mr. Spratt. Looking at the bill as a whole, if it came to
the President in the form that it has been filed and now stands
before the committee, what recommendation would you make to the
President with regard to signing the bill?
Mr. Lew. As I indicated in my opening remarks, we are very
troubled by the number of provisions in this bill. As you know,
the President has vetoed provisions similar to the automatic CR
provisions in this bill. I would have to say that on balance,
looking at all of the concerns we have in this bill, it would
be my recommendation that he not sign the bill, that he veto
the bill. But this is a very early point in the process, and I
would only make that comment to respond to the question. We
would certainly hope not to be in a position where there is a
bill that has to be vetoed.
Mr. Spratt. Thank you very much.
Chairman Kasich. Mr. Chambliss.
Mr. Chambliss. Mr. Lew, I think it takes a certain amount
of political arrogance to come in here, after having been
invited to participate in the process and apparently refusing
to participate in the process of developing the guts of this
bill, to now say you would recommend that the President veto
this bill if it passes in its current form, I really don't
understand that.
I think it kind of goes along with what you alluded to
earlier, that you don't agree that we need a joint resolution
process where the White House engages in the process early on
and we try to do what Congress thinks is the best way of
engaging Congress and the White House to achieve a joint
resolution early in the game every year, rather than the
American people sitting out there and watching us battle, as
they are doing right now. And as they are going to do all
through the summer and into the fall.
Instead of engaging early, resolving our problems early,
moving forward in a smoother manner, the only thing I can
surmise from your comments is that you think there is some
political advantage to not having a joint resolution and
engaging the White House early on. Otherwise you would have
done it. I am a little dismayed by the attitude that you
apparently have about this. The one thing I say is you are
absolutely correct, your predecessor supported this type of
process, this type of bill.
In the analytical perspectives attached to the 1998 budget
submitted by the White House, your predecessor alluded to just
exactly this type of process as being a very favorable course
of action for Congress to take and that the White House urged
Congress to take such action.
I disagree with your comments that you haven't flip-flopped
on PAYGO. I think it is pretty obvious you have. You personally
did send a letter to Mr. Spratt in which you say PAYGO applies
even though we have an on-budget surplus. But again, a year ago
your predecessor seemed to state otherwise. So there obviously
has been a change of heart there.
But I don't know, I want to give you a chance to respond to
that. Am I wrong? Are you thinking there is a political
advantage? That is why you don't want this? What is your real
reason?
Mr. Lew. Let me respond first by clarifying. I didn't say I
opposed the joint resolution. I raised a concern, which I think
may be addressable. It was an attempt to be constructive, not
to be in opposition. I am not disagreeing with the effort of
trying to design a mechanism. I was just setting forth a
concern that I think would need to be worked through.
I don't necessarily object to it. I was trying to
distinguish my comments from objecting to it. So let me just
clarify that. I am substantially more neutral than opposing it.
As far as the issue of the PAYGO matter, I think there was
a misunderstanding of the earlier correspondence that was
signed by my predecessor. It was addressing a very narrow set
of circumstances.
It was addressing a question of what happens during a
period of time during which there was a unified surplus, but an
on-budget deficit. At the moment when that issue was presented,
we addressed that specific scenario for the first time. We have
never reversed.
We tend to try and answer questions narrowly rather than
broadly and not reach major policy decisions until we need to.
The first moment when this policy issue presented itself, I
know I was very clear in all of my verbal comments. And the
first time I was asked to respond in writing, I responded as I
indicated at this hearing. So the only time the Office of
Management and Budget has ever indicated its position on this
issue has been consistent with what I testified to.
So sometimes letters are taken out of context and don't
necessarily reflect the full circumstances. I hope I have
clarified that a little bit in this testimony.
Mr. Chambliss. Well, I think you have, and I guess we could
argue about what was said and what wasn't said. I don't know if
that is material. We understand what your position is, and I
think that is fair enough.
If I misunderstood you in saying that you don't think this
is the right direction for us to go in and that you are willing
to try to work to resolve something that is mutually agreeable
to the administration as well as to Congress, I would hope that
you would be willing to work with Mr. Nussle and Mr. Cardin and
Mr. Minge to try to resolve whatever problems you have with the
process, because I think we are headed down the right track.
This may not be a perfect bill, but, Jack, I would hope you
all are not going to be walking down the road with blinders and
saying you are just not going to be willing to cooperate,
period.
Mr. Lew. No, I certainly hope there is no impression of a
lack of willingness to cooperate. We responded to every request
for participation in conversations and commenting on ideas. To
my knowledge, there has been no invitation for us to
participate that we haven't accepted, and we have even offered
some of our own ideas when they weren't invited. So we have
been part of the discussion.
To the extent that there are very serious concerns with
this bill, I tried to identify them in my opening remarks. The
most serious concerns are on this matter of weakening PAYGO and
on the question of the automatic continuing resolution. Those
are very fundamental problems. But we have addressed
fundamental problems before where one can work through
differences. I am not saying there is absolutely no way this
could be worked through. I was trying to be very careful in
responding to Congressman Spratt's question to indicate this is
an early stage in the process. There should be no
misunderstanding of how strongly we view the bill as it stands
now, but we are not anxious to get into a big fight early on.
If there are discussions that would be constructive, we are
always pleased to participate.
Mr. Chambliss. Thank you.
Mr. Spratt. Mr. Chairman, in fairness to Mr. Lew, I asked
that question because I knew the administration had strong
objections, and I think everybody needs to know that. In moving
forward, it would be a lot more arrogant to have this happen at
the 11th hour than to happen right now. Everybody needs to be
on notice that the administration has strong objections to some
of these provisions, and it may influence or affect our efforts
to work toward some common ground.
Mr. Nussle. Would the gentleman yield? I understand that
because you have the letter. The thing that is interesting to
me about this, and I understand that words can be taken out of
context, but I don't think actions can.
The current administration's budget proposal that was sent
up here to Capitol Hill had--I mean, unless somebody can
describe to me how it is going to work, needed a very dramatic
change in PAYGO in order for it to take effect. So I understand
that now, as a result of this bill, and in fairness, we need to
have in discussion, you and I talked about that.
But to come up here and to suggest now all of a sudden that
well, you know, we don't like changes in PAYGO, we kind of like
the way PAYGO is now, I think is a little bit strange when
their proposal in and of itself had to have dramatic changes in
PAYGO to be realistic.
Mr. Spratt. Those changes took place after Medicare and
Social Security were made solvent.
Chairman Kasich. There is no end to this movie, huh? This
is like one of those movies you watch over and over and over
again.
Jack, you don't want to say any more now, do you? You
already have Saxby stirred up. That is a prescription for total
failure. We got 3 or 4 votes. How do you want to proceed? Jim,
do you have anything you want to say to Jack? Why don't you go
ahead and ask your questions.
Mr. Nussle. I have a couple of quick things, and I suppose
you can respond in writing too. But the biggest thing I have a
question about is in your testimony you were very--you were not
critical, but your comments were--they were critical, and your
comments were directed at about just about every portion of the
bill, except you kind of let go the whole notion of joint
resolution. As you know, I think the administration has been
supportive of a joint resolution concept in the past.
Is that something just as we discussed this and begin our
first opportunity here today, is that something that the
administration is interested in?
Mr. Lew. I think it is fair to say we are interested in it,
and have in the past supported the idea. In the context of this
bill, I had concerns when I read all of the different
provisions, that there was the risk of pushing the business of
the year to the end. I am raising that concern not to say----
Mr. Nussle. In this bill.
Mr. Lew. In this bill. In the context of sort of an overall
discussion of budget process, the notion of a joint resolution
is attractive from a White House perspective; having the
President involved in the process, if it can work, is
attractive, yes. I am just suggesting as you work it through,
as you go through the mechanics, you have to look at the
Congressional side of it and make sure everything isn't
backloaded.
I am not opposing the idea. I am trying to suggest there is
a need to fine-tune the approach to make sure that it isn't the
enemy of the good.
Mr. Nussle. On emergencies, we took your definition. In the
bill, you were critical of the definition. But yet we took the
definition that you wrote, that OMB wrote.
Mr. Lew. The definition of emergencies was actually put
forth by Director Darman during the Bush administration. We
have continued to use it as our guidelines for analyzing
emergencies, and I think it has served us well.
Mr. Nussle. The buck stops here, because it has been in
your memorandums to your administration.
Mr. Lew. That is right. I was just giving the lineage of
it. I wasn't walking away from it. I have defended the
criteria.
Mr. Nussle. You walked away from it in your testimony is
the reason I was concerned.
Mr. Lew. I think there is a difference between
administrative determinations and statutory procedures. If you
look the at the experience we have had even this year, the
Central America emergency, the agriculture emergency, they were
included in the President's budget. They have been up here
since the first week, February. Today hopefully the Senate will
pass it, but they may or may not. They haven't acted yet. That
is a long time.
I think that if you look at the items in this emergency,
there is not an item in it that doesn't meet all of the
criteria.
Mr. Nussle. In the current bill?
Mr. Lew. I am talking about the proposal the President set
forth. The delay in considering the pieces that the President
sent forward just suggests that if you put hurdles in the way,
you can lose the opportunity to address emergencies. As you
create multiple bodies that rule on definitions of emergencies,
I am just concerned about delay.
Chairman Kasich. There is 4\1/2\ minutes to go. Paul wants
to ask a question. What we will do is let you go. We have four
votes. Then we will come back and take the panel.
Mr. Ryan. If I could ask you quickly, Jack, if you could
maybe submit your response in writing, I see a discrepancy in
your budget with respect to PAYGO. I have heard you mention
that you want PAYGO to stay as it is.
Could you reconcile that comment with the fact that it
appears that the administration is using tax increases to
offset discretionary spending increases, which is a violation
of PAYGO? Specifically your budget contains about $154 billion
in spending increases in discretionary programs, partially
offset with $68.9 billion in tax increases, which cannot be
used to pay for the other, by PAYGO's definition. Even if we
are going to go vote, could you please outline that?
Mr. Lew. I would be happy to respond verbally or in
writing. I think under the scoring rules, our interpretation is
perfectly consistent with current law.
Mr. Ryan. Under CBO scoring, the fact is that PAYGO has
been breached.
Mr. Lew. I am looking to the Chairman for guidance on the
committee's schedule.
Chairman Kasich. We have your response. You think what you
are doing is OK.
Mr. Lew. I was going to offer a more eloquent explanation.
Chairman Kasich. Leon is watching you. He would be very
proud of this. We appreciate your coming.
I would just say to you that I wish you would privately get
together with Mr. Cardin and Mr. Nussle and Mr. Minge and tell
them whether you really are interested in working something out
or not, because we are just--we don't want to play games. We
can decide what we are going to do. Let's just try to get that
resolved. You don't need to go on the records, just give them--
jingle their phone late at night and tell them where you are.
We will stand in recess and come back for the last panel.
[Recess.]
Mr. Chambliss [presiding]. All right, we will proceed now
with our third panel. Let me just apologize to the panel and
tell you all we appreciate very much your patience with us.
Hopefully we will be able to proceed forward with this panel
without the interruption of a vote. Obviously we never know
that.
First of all, let me just recognize and welcome former
congressman John Rhodes from Arizona. John, it is a pleasure to
have you here. Is a pleasure for me to meet you. I appreciated
your comments earlier as we were talking with the fact that you
were here when the original Budget Control and Impoundment Act
was passed in 1974, and you were a leader in that process.
We appreciate your being here and would welcome any
comments you might like to make to the committee here today.
Mr. Rhodes. Mr. Chairman, I thank you for that. I certainly
appreciate the opportunity to appear before this committee. As
you have said, I was on the committee that the Speaker put
together to study the possibility of a congressional budget. It
took awhile, but we were getting aware of the fact that what
the Congress did was to take the President's budget and either
enact it in parts or in whole without looking ahead as to what
we were really doing to the economy of the country and what we
were doing with regard to budget deficits or lack of deficits
in the future.
So that was really the main reason that the congressional
budget process was born. I have to tell you, when we finished
it, we were well aware of the fact that the act was faulted in
some ways. But there was a legislative situation at that time
consisting mainly of the fact that practically every committee
chairman thought that this was a terrible invasion of his turf
and there had to be some compromises made that weakened the
whole thing.
Nevertheless, I am well aware of the fact that if we didn't
have this Budget Committee and if we didn't have the budget
process, I think that the fiscal situation of the government
would be much worse than it is today.
Now, I am not saying I like what it is today, but I think I
would be safe in saying that I like it a lot better than the
way I would feel about it if you weren't doing what you are
doing.
So I do want to congratulate the committee. When I got out
of Congress, I became a co-chairman of the Committee for a
Responsible Federal Budget, and I learned an awful lot about
the things that go into budget and budget preparations from
Carol Cox Wait and Rudy Penner and a lot of the really good
professionals who we have working on the budget.
Again, I want to thank you. I was on the first Budget
Committee. At that time the law provided that the leadership of
the two parties would be represented on the committee. Since I
had been on the committee that put the act together, I wanted
to be on this committee, and I was.
I came to realize that the job was so big that I couldn't
very well be minority leader and also carry out my duties as a
member of this committee. I reluctantly gave up my position,
but I still have a lot of interest in what you are doing and
how you are doing it.
I congratulate you.
Mr. Chambliss. Thank you, John very much. You have been a
real pioneer in the budget process, and we appreciate your
insight. Again, thank you for being here today.
Our panel members are really no strangers to this group.
Carol Cox Wait, of course, is president and CEO of the
Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Carol, thank you
for being here. John gives you all the credit for everything he
knows about budgets, so we expect great words of wisdom from
you. We know that will be forthcoming.
Our friend, Dan Crippen--certainly Dan is no stranger to
us, and, as Director of CBO, we are always glad to have you
visit with us.
Mr. Rudy Penner, a former Director of CBO, Mr. Penner, your
knowledge and insights into the budget process are well-
recognized, and we thank you for being here today.
Robert Greenstein, executive director of the Center for
Budget and Policy Priorities, again, your knowledge of the
budget process is known to all of us, and we thank all of you
for being here.
STATEMENTS OF DAN CRIPPEN, DIRECTOR, CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET
OFFICE; RUDOLPH G. PENNER, FORMER DIRECTOR, CONGRESSIONAL
BUDGET OFFICE, SENIOR FELLOW, THE URBAN INSTITUTE; CAROL COX
WAIT, PRESIDENT, COMMITTEE FOR A RESPONSIBLE FEDERAL BUDGET;
AND ROBERT GREENSTEIN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CENTER ON BUDGET AND
POLICY PRIORITIES
Mr. Chambliss. Carol, we are going to start with you and
just proceed in this order, unless somebody has a scheduling
problem. If you do, let us know. But if not, that is the order
we will proceed in.
So, Carol.
STATEMENT OF CAROL COX WAIT
Ms. Wait. Mr. Chairman, thank you.
Mr. Chairman, Mr. Spratt, Mr. Nussle. Mr. Cardin isn't
here. Mr. Minge, with whom I have worked over the years a great
deal on budget process, thank you for having me here today. The
Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget originally was
formed out of concern for sound budget process. Very soon after
we organized persistent record peacetime deficits diverted our
attention and have continued to consume a lot of our time ever
since.
But the underlying organizing principle of our organization
continues to be budget process. It will continue to be so, as
long as we stay together, and I am here today on behalf of our
Republican co-chairman, Bill Frenzel, who used to be ranking
member of this committee; on behalf of Tim Penny, our
Democratic co-chairman, who tried mightily to arrange his
schedule so he could be with you, but could not; and the other
members of our board who collectively have hundreds of years of
experience with the congressional budget process.
You have my written testimony, and I am not going to bore
you by reading it to you. I want to take a little bit of time
to discuss some of the issues that that testimony touches on,
using as my focus point H.R. 853. As I understand it, this is
the vehicle you all will be using. It is the product of your
bipartisan task force led by Mr. Nussle and Mr. Cardin, working
with Mr. Goss.
It is a good bill and we can support it. It does not go as
far as we would like. To illustrate ways in which we think it
could constructively go further, I will from time to time refer
to proposals by Representatives Barton, Stenholm, Minge and
others, as well as to some proposals by Senator Domenici, the
Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee.
In three major areas, H.R. 853 proposes highly constructive
changes. Changes such as these, or something similar, simply
must occur if we are going to continue any sort of budgetary
discipline in this brave new world of budget surpluses. The
first area is a joint budget resolution.
Until the two policy branches of government finally reach
agreement on one budget for the United States Government, the
government really doesn't have any budget at all. That
condition ought to be unacceptable to you and to all Americans.
A joint budget resolution would bring real political
accountability to the budget process and it could assuage, if
not eliminate, most, if not all, of the problems that we
describe as baseline problems.
We would prefer to see your joint budget resolution spin
off when Congress adopts a concurrent resolution on the budget,
as would have been the case under a bill introduced in earlier
Congresses by Representatives Panetta and Spratt.
Given the simplified form of your proposed joint
resolution, we believe this to be entirely feasible. We believe
Members would have no difficulty understanding the substance of
the law to be sent to the President for signature. This
approach would permit you to confine matters essential to
internal congressional deliberations and policing of the budget
to the concurrent resolution, and to limit the joint resolution
to overall fiscal policy plans and enforcement matters on which
Congress and the President must agree.
Somebody has to do something soon to cauterize what Bill
Frenzel calls ``the running sore,'' which is the so-called
emergency loophole in today's budget process. The emergency
part of appropriations enacted at the end of last year, $22
billion, was more than the total budgets of all but 10 States
in the country. That is outrageous.
We support your proposals to address the emergency problem.
We wish you had gone further and done more to dampen the
instinct of State and local officials to get all they can while
the getting is good when they have a disaster. We address those
issues in more detail in our written testimony.
I would associate myself with Rudy's concerns about how you
establish the level for emergencies. We do prefer the approach
that Rudy suggests, which is to take some percentage of
discretionary appropriations available each year and set that
amount aside for contingencies, rather than the 5-year rolling
average. We are concerned that the 5-year rolling average will
give you a constant upward bias in the amount of money that you
set aside for emergencies.
As I say in my written testimony, budgeteers tend to react
viscerally and negatively to anything that spends money
automatically. However, our committee has concluded that
something like your proposed automatic stopgap spending bill is
much the lesser of two evils. The greater evil being the
current state of affairs in which the administration and
individual Members may use the threat of a government shutdown
as a lever to help get their own priorities funded.
Every time one Member gets their own priorities funded,
every time Congress acquiesces to an administration priority,
there arises a need to take care of somebody else's priority.
That creates constant, inexorable upward pressure on total
Federal spending.
We admit to the committee of a bias, all things being
equal, toward a budget process that operates somewhat as a
constraint. We come to this conclusion reluctantly, but now we
are enthusiastic supporters; and we commend to you the idea of
the automatic continuing resolution. We would prefer to see it
at a level lower than last year's level. We deal with that in
more detail in our written testimony.
With regard to PAYGO, we note in our written testimony that
Mr. Barton, Mr. Minge, Mr. Stenholm were prepared to introduce
language in 1997 very similar to that in H.R. 853. Our
organization can support that language today.
Given time and space to think, however, about a world in
which we may actually have budget surpluses over and above
Social Security surpluses, and to think about how the world
might work if you really did have a real budget represented by
joint budget resolutions, it seems to me that you could write
into the joint resolution each year, or each biennium, the
levels above or below which the PAYGO proscriptions would
apply.
I guess the older I get, the less comfortable I am with
rigid rules that try and make value judgments today and impose
them forever on future Congresses. One virtue of having a real
policy document as a budget is that when Congress makes other
fiscal policy decisions, you can also decide what part of the
surplus ought to be available in the upcoming budget window and
what part of it ought to be subject to PAYGO restrictions.
Also I would suggest to you that you consider taking
technical changes off the table and limiting permissible
adjustments for changes in economics to current law revenues,
when you determine whether or not the use of PAYGO balances
will trigger sequestration. Even that may not be the perfect
formulation, but you should seek an approach that captures as
contemporaneously as possible changes in economics and enforces
policy.
I think that the mechanism, as described in H.R. 853, is
somewhat weaker than it might be in that regard.
The foregoing discussion serves to underline one of the
strengths of the joint resolution, the ability of Congress and
the President to agree on policy, and enforce the policy that
they set until they take responsibility for changing it.
There is no right or wrong level of Federal spending. There
is no right or wrong level of revenues. There is no objective
case, no scientific test you can do, to say that the government
ought to be 21 percent of GDP or 19 percent.
The right amount is the amount that Congress and the
President agree to and are willing to be held accountable for
at any given point in time. If you have a multiyear joint
budget resolution that contains caps for 3 or 5 or 6 years at a
time, I suspect that those caps in time will become a serious
incentive for Congresses and Presidents to enact new budgets,
because priorities will change over time.
You may want a different disaggregation of the caps. You
may want different levels of caps. But the caps themselves over
time will create a compelling incentive for Congresses and
Presidents to adopt new budgets.
I want to make a comment here, also, about three major
areas where we would strengthen budget process reform further.
All three get somewhat more detailed attention in our prepared
testimony, but I feel compelled to mention that we hope to see
progress in the future toward biennial budgeting, entitlement
caps and enhanced rescission.
Especially in the case of enhanced rescission, we are hard
pressed to understand why a Congress that enacted line item
veto legislation would not, the court having struck down that
law, want to enact something that operates as a kind of a proxy
for the line-item veto. We do think that Congress should vote
up or down when the President proposes to rescind money.
For now, however, let me say that you and your task force
and Mr. Goss have done an outstanding job. We support your
efforts. We hope to work with your staff to write better budget
process into law, and we do need to write better budget process
into law.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chambliss. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Carol Cox Wait follows:]
Prepared Statement of Carol Cox Wait, President of the Committee for a
Responsible Federal Budget
Mr. Chairman, Mr. Spratt, thank you for inviting me to testify
today on behalf of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Our
group originally was formed out of concern for sound budget process.
Our Republican Co-Chairman, Bill Frenzel, recently testified before the
Rules Committee on the subjects before you today. Our Democratic Co-
Chairman, Tim Penny, wanted very much to be here today. But your
schedule and Tim's could not be made to mesh, so you get me. Budget
process reform has been a major focus for our organization for more
than a decade. We have worked with the American Business Conference,
The Business Roundtable, The Concord Coalition and many other groups--
and with literally hundreds of Members--to formulate recommendations to
make the budget process more effective, more efficient and more
accountable. We are impressed with the work of your task force. We are
glad to have this opportunity to share our views with you. We have
submitted written testimony for the record. I will take a few minutes
today to highlight that testimony.
History
The Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act was born of
frustration:
First, over President Nixon's exercise of impoundment
authority; and
Second, that Congress had no mechanism, nor vehicle, to
articulate a coherent alternative to the President's Budget proposals.
Impoundment
Ironically, the Federal Courts effectively eliminated presidential
impoundment authority before the Budget Act became law. Presidents
impounded appropriated funds for nearly two hundred years, and nobody
sued.
When grantees, who anticipated receipt of Federal funds pursuant to
appropriations President Nixon impounded did sue, however, Courts rules
that Presidents cannot unilaterally reverse the law. The courts found
that it takes an Act of Congress to reverse an earlier Act of Congress.
Nonetheless, Congressional desires to put stringent limits on
Presidents' ability to withhold appropriated funds provided powerful
impetus to passage of the Budget Act in 1973.
Coherent Congressional Budgets
Prior to the Budget Act, the President transmitted a budget to
Congress. The President's budget was virtually disassembled, and the
parts were sent to relevant committees. Appropriations Committees
disposed of presidential requests for discretionary funds in at least
thirteen separate bills each year (usually more). Committees of
jurisdiction dealt with presidential proposals for new direct spending,
or for changes to existing entitlements. Tax committees acted (or
failed to act) on revenue proposals. Congress could not gauge the
aggregate fiscal policy impacts of their spending and revenue decisions
until after the end of the fiscal year, when Treasury reported actual
receipts, outlays, deficits or surpluses and debt. Periodically,
Congress acted to increase the debt limit, but debt limit votes simply
recognize and accommodate past decisions after-the-fact.
Democrats controlled Congress. They believed that the President's
budget provided a powerful advantage as it permitted the Administration
to describe their entire legislative program and goals, in context, in
one document. They believed that a congressional budget could mitigate
that advantage.
Reaction
The impetus for congressional budget legislation was reactionary.
There were few in Congress arguing constructively the need for a new
budget process.
Ironically, fury over impoundment was a more forceful imperative,
at that time and in the view of most Members, than the desire for a
coherent congressional budget process.
The people who wrote the law labored to put these reactionary
forces to good use. They tried hard to bring some order to
Congressional decision-making processes. They were hamstrung by the
imperative to protect all existing centers of power and to make the new
process appear as benign as possible.
The drafters of the Budget Act knew the new process would not work.
I know, because most have been on our Board, and they told me so.
Evolution
The process described in the Budget Act was fundamentally flawed:
First, it was iterative; and budgeting is by definition a
distributive process;
Second, it was unrealistic. There were too many budget
resolutions; and the Act envisioned budgeting 1 year at a time. The
first resolution did not really count. Reconciliation came at the end
of the process and would have reversed work that consumed most of a
congressional session. There was no effective enforcement mechanism.
The Budget Committees had no legislative jurisdiction and
no real power.
The process was supposed to be outcomes neutral--but large and
rising deficits overshadowed all other fiscal policy concerns for the
first two decades under the Budget Act, and Members soon sought to
create biases in the process to encourage deficit reduction.
A series of deficit reduction initiatives that failed to produce
advertised outcomes led to increased focus on enforcement.
For the first half of the 1980's, Congress used the ``elastic
clauses'' in the original Budget Act to make the process more
responsive to immediate concerns. In 1985, 1987, 1990, 1993 and 1997
they amended the law as well as the process and eventually achieved the
desired outcome (budget balance) last year.
Why Reform the Budget Process?
There are four main reasons we are here discussing budget process
reform:
Frustration. Some, who accepted restrictive rules such as
PAYGO when that seemed necessary to reduce the deficit or balance the
budget, resent restraints on the allocation of some or all budget
surpluses for new programs and or tax reductions.
Complexity. The current budget process, having grown like
topsy, is ridiculously complex. Duplication and overlap spawn
redundancy and lead to conflict between and among those charged with
disposition of the same issues at different points in the process.
You probably have, on this panel, a third or half the folks outside
Congress who understand the budget process. This is a product of
evolutionary change, of some changes codified in law, others buried in
unanimous consent agreements, and some rules resulting from tacit
understandings. It seems to many Members and staff that Congress is
governed by arcane rules known to very few and subject to change almost
without notice.
Disappointment. The process rarely produces outcomes
consistent with the promises made when Congress adopts a budget.
Congress and the President rarely complete a budget cycle on time.
Fiscal policy decisions seem never to be final. Members tire of
debating the same issues over and over again.
Future Challenges. We are getting older! This committee is
keenly aware of building budget pressures. Budget surpluses are good
news in every way except for what they mean to fiscal discipline.
Discretionary spending caps are under fire. ``Emergencies'' are now
welcome events because they provide the opportunity to spend more.
Medicare changes enacted in 1997 are being attacked for saving too
much. The budget process cannot withstand these pressures because it
focuses on short-term needs, not long-term challenges.
The reasons listed above may provide the push necessary for
Congress to consider serious budget process reforms, but we think there
are many more, and far more compelling, reasons to do so.
One budget for the U.S. government. There really is no
such thing as a budget for the United States Government. The two policy
branches of government operate off of separate budgets. The absence of
one budget is the principal cause of most so-called ``baseline''
problems. The absence of an agreed budget invites confusion and
undermines accountability. We believe it is imperative for Congress and
the President to agree to one budget and agree to be bound by that
blueprint until they can agree on a new version.
Accountability. Political leaders should be accountable
for decisions about the size and role of government, deficits or
surpluses, rising or declining national debt, and tax burden, i.e.,
Federal fiscal policy. The current budget process fails this test.
Better enforcement. Current budget enforcement mechanisms
are designed almost exclusively to reduce the deficit. Often, the focus
is wrong. The process advantages past decisions at the expense of
current and future priorities.
Specific Reform Proposals
It is our understanding that this hearing is to focus on H.R. 853,
introduced this year by Mr. Nussle (R-IA), Mr. Cardin (D-MD), and Mr.
Goss (R-FL)--the product of your Budget Committee bipartisan task force
on budget process reform and Mr. Goss' Rules Committee Process
Subcommittee. I will also refer the pioneering work Representatives
Barton (R-TX) and Stenholm (D-TX) have done in the last two Congresses
and to some proposals by the Senate Budget Committee Chairman, Mr.
Domenici (R-NM). I would be remiss, if I did not mention that the
Barton-Stenholm bills owe a lot to the thought and work of our
Democratic Co-Chairman, Tim Penny, when he was a member of this august
body.
The following comments, however, are organized around the form
followed by the Highlights of your Task Force bill, H.R. 853.
joint budget resolution
Replacing the concurrent resolution on the budget with a joint
budget resolution is absolutely essential to make the budget process
real, meaningful, enforceable and accountable.
As noted above, the United States government today operates without
a real budget. Congress and the President agree each year on
appropriations for discretionary programs. But discretionary spending
represents a steadily declining proportion of total Federal spending.
From time to time, Congress and the Administration agree to changes in
some existing direct spending programs and /or tax laws and policies,
to conform to agreed budgetary outcomes. Those changes almost always
take the form of reconciliation bills. But the President and Congress
do not agree on aggregates for receipts and expenditures, deficits or
surpluses and debt--much less on the allocation of spending among
competing priorities.
A joint budget resolution would put to rest most of the problems
generally attributed to baselines.
A joint budget resolution would force the policy branches of
government to reconcile your differences earlier--rather at the end of
each session of Congress.
A joint budget resolution containing binding multi-year expenditure
limits could create a compelling incentive for future Congresses and
Presidents to reach budget agreements in a timely fashion. The
Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget believes strongly that joint
budget resolutions should contain nominal dollar expenditure limits for
five or 6 years into the future. Continuing those limits in force until
and unless a new joint resolution is adopted will help tremendously to
prod Congresses and Presidents to reach agreement on new budgets in a
timely fashion.
Reducing the number of budget functions required to be included in
the resolution is a very good idea. We are not certain what is the
optimum number. We are comfortable with the H.R. 853 construct--defense
and non-defense discretionary, direct spending, and such other
categories as may be deemed necessary (which could change from year to
year).
emergencies
We are gratified that almost everybody is agreed we must do
something to narrow (if not close) the so-called ``emergency'' loophole
in the current budget process. The ``emergency'' portion of
appropriations enacted at the end of the 104th Congress was equal to or
greater than the total budgets of all but ten states in the nation.
When Congress and the President agree to call something an emergency,
they exempt that spending from the trade-offs that apply to
appropriations subject to statutory caps. Is it any wonder, every time
one of these bills comes down the pike, everyone wants to get into the
act? Everybody would like to include their pet project, their highest
priority, in this privileged category where it would not have to
compete with anything else.
The provisions in H.R. 853 are a vast improvement over current
rules for ``emergencies''. Setting aside specific amounts tied to
actual recent experience is a good idea. Budget Committee scrutiny of
``excess emergency'' proposals could bring more sanity to the process.
We only hope, if these provisions are enacted, the Budget Committees
follow all the proscriptions contained in the bill, with regard to any
recommendations for emergency spending to be exempt from the caps. In
this regard, we continue to believe that the additional safeguards
contained in the Barton/Stenholm bills almost certainly will be needed
to cauterize what our Republican Co-Chairman, Bill Frenzel, calls ``one
of the worst running sores of the current process''.
So long as States can recoup 100% of emergency service
costs in designated disaster.
So long as the President unilaterally can waive the State
match, and/or waive repayment of loans to pay required State match.
State and local elected officials will be tempted to
expand disaster and emergency needs to fill whatever resources
Washington is willing to provide for those purposes.
The purpose of matching requirements is to provide State
and local officials incentives to use Federal resources as judiciously
as they would use their own funds. . Absent such restraints, Federal
disaster assistance is ``free money''. The pressure on Washington to
provide ever more resources likely will continue to escalate and prove
irresistible.
And, when disaster areas seem to benefit from Federal
spending for non-disaster purposes, the will deny similar treatment to
other non-emergencies, for other constituencies may weaken.
In short, H.R. 853 adopts many of the provisions we believe can
help limit the expansion of emergency designation to non-emergency
items. But we fear that pressure may continue at the other end of the
pipeline, and that pressure could undermine resolve in Washington,
until and unless something is done to change incentives for State and
local officials to get all they can while the getting is good.
Enforcement
We hope we misunderstand the enforcement provisions in H.R. 853 as
they apply to discretionary spending caps. If the bill proposes to
include in each joint budget resolution spending caps for the budget
year only, we think that is a serious mistake.
As noted above, we are convinced that multi-year caps, enacted as
part of each year's joint budget resolution, can create compelling
incentives for Presidents and Congresses to reach agreement on
subsequent budgets in a timely fashion.
Moreover, those of us who have been around since the beginning of
the modern budget process remember how difficult it was to measure
sensible the impact of fiscal policy decisions 1 year at a time. You
need a budget window of at least 3 years--preferably 5 or 6 years--to
get a real sense of the impacts of decisions you make for the budget
year.
It will come as no surprise to most of you, the Committee for a
Responsible Federal Budget supports caps for direct spending, as well
as discretionary spending programs. We continue to support the
construct included in the several bills introduced by Representatives
Barton and Stenholm:
Global caps for total direct spending;
Discrete caps for large programs (Barton Stenholm define
as $20 billion per year or larger);
Sequestration triggered by breech of the global caps;
Sequestration affecting only those programs in offending
categories (the ones that caused the breech).
increased accountability
The 10-year sunset for new programs in H.R. 853 is a very good
idea. We are less enthusiastic about separate debt votes.
accrual budgeting
By and large, keeping the government on a cash basis makes sense.
Insurance programs are the exception that proves the rule. Here, H.R.
853 has it right. Accrual accounting makes sense for this category of
activity, although budget technicians are concerned about estimating
subsidies and other implementation problems.
reducing the big spending bias
Talk about transparency, most Americans would welcome a world in
which we compare spending year-over-year.
It may be just as important, however, to compare spending 3 years
from now to what we say those amounts should be in the budgets we adopt
today. Thus, we urge two comparisons--one to last year; and the other
against plan. This is especially important when you plan to increase
spending for specific purposes--or to reduce/phase out a program. But,
keep in mind that you will always have to have current law estimates
for mandatory spending and revenues. Last year's level and the plan
don't control outcomes in these areas. Whether it is called a
``baseline'' or not, you need to know where existing substantive law
would produce different results than projected under a budget
resolution.
automatic stop-gap appropriations
Generically, budgeteers hate automatic spending. Why spend anything
on old low priority programs? In this instance, however, the Committee
for a Responsible Federal Budget concludes that automatic spending at
reduced levels is the lesser of two unattractive choices. We would
prefer an automatic CR at 95% of last year's level--or the lower of
last year, the President's request, or latest House or Senate action--
but last year's level is better than the alternative we have witnessed
in recent years. Administrations and individual Members use the threat
of government shutdowns as leverage to force others to accommodate
their demands. The ``others'' almost always want something in return.
This creates a clear bias toward ever higher spending. The threat that
poses to budget discipline leads us to support the automatic stopgap
spending approach.
pay-as-you-go in surplus budgets
This is one instance where you must ask yourselves: what biases do
we want to build into the budget process?
We understand that Congresses and Presidents object to PAYGO as we
know it in times of surplus. Why not spend some of the surplus for tax
cuts, or new programs?
Joe Barton and Charlie Stenholm were prepared in 1997 to offer
language similar to that in H.R. 853, and we were prepared to support
it.
On the other hand, we raise the following question:
If you enact a joint budget resolution, why not include in
the resolution each year levels above or below which PAYGO will or will
not apply? For example, the resolution could exempt on-budget surpluses
for PAYGO purposes by writing unified budget surpluses equal to Social
Security surpluses into the resolution bottom line.
One real advantage of joint budget resolutions is that
they provide opportunities to write policies such as this into law--and
to modify such policies as imperatives change.
However, we are inclined to be very cautious about any relaxation
in fiscal discipline until Congress and the President address Social
Security and Medicare reform. Projected surpluses may not be an unmixed
blessing:
Projected surpluses are projections. They could disappear
if economic conditions deteriorate, but new spending or tax cuts
enacted in the expectation that surpluses will be available to finance
costs would go on and on;
The longer-term outlook seems brighter, precisely because
official projections assume surpluses will be used to retire debt and
future interest costs. The longer-term outlook would look considerably
less Rosy if substantially smaller amounts were used to reduce
outstanding debt held by the public. The bigger the surpluses the
better. Social Security surpluses are not enough to meet Social
Security's future needs, let alone projected Medicare requirements. If
Social Security surpluses are not ``saved'' (that is, used to reduce
outstanding publicly held debt), then, economically speaking, you might
as well not have them at all.
other reforms not in h.r. 853
Biennial budgeting. Barton-Stenholm and Domenici both would enact
biennial budget and appropriations processes. The Committee for a
Responsible Federal Budget continues to support that approach and we
recommend you consider adopting it as you go further with budget
process reform.
Enhanced rescission. We do not understand why you pass up this
opportunity to put in place tough enhanced rescission language--in the
place of line-item veto struck down by the Court. Our Committee
believes that Congress ought to be forced, at least, to vote up or down
on the specific items President's want to rescind (especially as
Presidents almost always argue such spending is wasteful or
unnecessary). We encourage you to give this issue careful
consideration. You may not have another opportunity soon to do
something about it.
Entitlement Caps. We harbor no illusion that this Congress likely
will jump off this cliff but the Committee for a Responsible Federal
Budget continues to be convinced that expenditure limitation is the key
to accountable budget process.
There is no objectively right level of public expenditure; but
Congress and the President should agree on the appropriate level when
you adopt a budget; and you should be bound by that limit until and
unless you adopt a new budget or otherwise revise it in law.
Conclusion
In conclusion, our committee and I want to congratulate Mr. Nussle,
Mr. Cardin, and Mr. Goss--and all the Members and staff who worked with
them to produce H.R. 853. You have done a good job. You have not done
all we would like. Assuming, however, that you do not mean to eliminate
multi-year caps for discretionary spending, we can wholeheartedly
support the bill.
Mr. Chairman, this is as important as any project your committee
likely will undertake in the course of this Congress. The budget
process as we know it is strained to adjust to the pressures put upon
it as a result of radically changed fiscal policy reality. Congress
cannot go back to the pre-1973, no-process days.
Budget processes are certain to frustrate--no matter how well
conceived. After all, budget processes are designed to constrain the
political process. And no budget process ever will be 100 percent
effective to produce promised outcomes.
Budget processes are like policemen. The only way you would know
how effective is the cop on the beat would be to give him a vacation.
Similarly, the only way to measure the success of any budget process is
to consider what likely would have occurred in its absence.
Today, we think you are moving toward a highly constructive answer
to that question. Buy reforming the process, replacing it with a more
effective model. We look forward to working with you in that effort.
Thank you.
Mr. Chambliss. Mr. Crippen.
STATEMENT OF DAN L. CRIPPEN
Mr. Crippen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to join those who already this morning have
congratulated the task force--particularly Congressmen Nussle,
Cardin, and Minge--for their work on the bill thus far and, I
am sure, for the many more hours they are going to spend on it.
The bill responds to many of the concerns and complaints about
the budget process that have been voiced by Members of Congress
and others in recent years.
Before I get to the content of the bill, Mr. Chairman, I
would like to return to where we started, these many years ago.
It is occasionally useful to remember from whence we have come,
and this might be one of those times.
As many of you know, the Budget Act was actually titled the
Budget and Impoundment Control Act. Its genesis was the
impoundment of appropriations by President Richard Nixon. The
act was the Congress's response, enacted over the President's
veto. The budget process and its institutions--this committee
and the Congressional Budget Office--were born of the
constitutional tensions over spending. The act was designed to
reassert the control of Congress in developing and executing
the budget.
Those tensions and that purpose still exist today. It is
not surprising to hear the Director of the Office of Management
and Budget [OMB] endorse the parts of the bill that would
enhance Presidential power and object to those that might
diminish it. Jack could accurately characterize the comments I
am about to make using the same framework but with the opposing
conclusion.
Ultimately, the budget process, like any other process,
does not determine the outcome; it merely facilitates it. It
provides, if you will, an institutional rumble strip in the
road to wake you up, to remind you of what you are doing. But
changes to the process can alter the balance of power at the
margins, and that is what brings us here today.
I would only caution that what appears attractive at the
moment--shifting power in even subtle ways--can have unintended
consequence down the road. Although the process is limited in
its ability to promote or prevent any particular outcome--
indeed my distinguished colleague and predecessor to my left on
the panel today reportedly once said, ``The process is not the
problem; the problem is the problem''--I am not as sanguine as
Jack about how well it has worked since 1990. We can all take
some comfort from the current outlook, but we also know that
most of the improvement is attributable due to the performance
of the economy and the growth of revenues, not to the
performance of the process.
Since 1990, we have witnessed a government shutdown; that,
presumably, no one wants to repeat. A change in process might
help prevent another shutdown. The Balanced Budget Act of 1997
was less a product of the process and much more a product of
the politics. Last year the Congress failed to achieve a budget
resolution. Most recently, the designation of emergency
spending has grown dramatically and threatens to remove fiscal
discipline.
Many of you have expressed, even this morning,
disgruntlement with the current supplemental. The OMB Director,
while extolling the virtues of the current system, presented a
budget to you that exceeds the discretionary appropriation caps
by some $30 billion. So it will take a great deal of discipline
by the Congress and the President to prevent the surplus from
being spent, no matter what budget process is in place. But
recent history suggests that there is certainly room for
improvement.
Turning now to the legislation before us today, I will
summarize the major point of my prepared statement. First, a
joint budget resolution inviting the President to negotiate
early in the year on the budget has merit but is obviously no
panacea. If there were wide disagreements, the joint resolution
might actually delay the process. If the disagreements were not
wide, a joint resolution would be unnecessary.
Whatever its merits, that provision would present a major
shift from the original purpose underlying the Budget Act--to
give the Congress, through the adoption of a concurrent
resolution on the budget, a means to establish and enforce its
own budget priorities, independent of the President.
Second, an automatic continuing resolution [CR] has merit,
especially to avoid a government shutdown. It would, however,
bring an end to one of the only action-forcing deadlines in the
budget process, giving an important legislative advantage to
defenders of the status quo over those who would prefer
dramatic changes in spending, up or down. In the current
political climate, an automatic CR would appear to diminish the
power of the President in achieving his spending priorities.
Third, the bill would clarify the pay-as-you-go [PAYGO]
process to affirm that it is possible to enact legislation that
increases mandatory spending or cuts taxes without offsets up
to the amount of the projected on-budget surplus for the year.
That clarification would not jettison the overall budgetary
discipline that it now imposes, since legislation causing an
on-budget deficit would still have to be offset. Further, since
PAYGO is enforced one year at time, PAYGO legislation could in
later years require legislative offsets or even trigger a PAYGO
sequestration if sufficient on-budget surpluses were not also
projected in the sequestration reports for those years.
Because the PAYGO requirement is enforced with OMB
estimates, the future use of this change would rely on the
administration's budget projections. The current budget
resolution makes it clear that the Congressional Budget Office
is to score PAYGO in a fashion consistent with the
clarification requested in this bill.
Fourth, one of the most vexing reform issues facing
lawmakers now is how to achieve a proper balance between the
rigors of the budget process and the need for effective program
oversight. As of the beginning of this year, nearly one-fifth
of the total discretionary appropriations for 1999 that funded
programs for the underlying authorizations had expired.
In 1993, the Congress enacted the Government Performance
and Results Act [GPRA] to require Federal agencies to establish
strategic plans and performance measures. Regular legislative
review of Federal programs, as envisioned by the bill before
you today, may help to support the goals underlying GPRA.
Fifth, insurance reform is terrific in theory but difficult
in practice. One of the major challenges posed by the proposed
reform is the difficulty of assessing future losses under
various Federal insurance programs. Although some forms of
insurance that have close analogs in the private sector might
prove relatively easy to make, others, such as deposit
insurance, would probably be very difficult. The 6 years
envisioned for implementation is probably a minimum, although
some types of insurance might be scored before that.
Sixth, if you were to do nothing else, simply codifying the
definition only of emergency spending would be helpful. Without
a definition of what constitutes an emergency, it matters
little what else you do.
Finally, the extensive changes proposed by the bill also
suggest a broader issue of budget process reform that I think
should be addressed. It is time to convene a new Commission on
Federal Budget Concepts. In general, Federal budget concepts
are based on the recommendations of the 1967 President's
Commission on Budget Concepts. Although the Commission's
guidelines continue to apply broadly in the budget process,
they do not address certain fundamental issues that lawmakers
and budget scorekeepers currently face. For example, various
proposals to reform Social Security, especially those that call
for personal retirement accounts, raise thorny issues about the
appropriate budgetary treatment. Further, the dividing line
between Federal spending and revenue law has become blurred, as
evidenced by the increasing use of refundable tax credits as a
device for expanding budgetary resources. The use of public/
private partnerships, such as those involving military housing
and various lease-purchase arrangements, also raises questions
of budgetary treatment for which the Commission's original
recommendations provide little or no guidance.
These and other issues put budget scorekeepers in a
difficult position as they seek to apply outdated or incomplete
concepts to novel policies. That situation suggests the need to
reevaluate current budgetary concepts and to try to reach a
consensus on changes that will make them clearer, more
comprehensive, and more effective.
I encourage the committee, as part of the process of
reviewing this bill, to consider that enough has changed in the
past 30 years to warrant another look at those rules as well.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chambliss. Thank you, sir.
[The prepared statement of Dan L. Crippen follows:]
Prepared Statement of Dan L. Crippen, Director, Congressional Budget
Office
Mr. Chairman, Congressman Spratt, and members of the committee,
thank you for the opportunity to testify on H.R. 853, the Comprehensive
Budget Process Reform Act of 1999. That bill reflects the work of the
committee's Task Force on Budget Process from the 105th Congress, which
was headed by Congressmen Nussle and Cardin. It responds to many of the
concerns and complaints about the budget process that have been voiced
by Members of Congress and others in recent years.
The task force, which worked closely with the House Rules
Committee, held several hearings on major reform issues and heard from
many witnesses. The members of the task force should be commended for
their hard work and thorough analysis of these thorny budget reform
issues. They have produced a wide-ranging and ambitious measure.
The major purposes of H.R. 853 are to encourage early budget
agreement between the President and the Congress, improve planning for
emergencies and budgeting for Federal insurance, reinvigorate
legislative oversight and review of Federal programs, end the threat of
disruptive government shutdowns, and allow more flexibility in the use
of budgetary offsets. It would seek to accomplish those goals by
converting the budget resolution into a measure that would become law,
creating a reserve-fund procedure for emergency spending, establishing
new requirements for the review and reauthorization of Federal
programs, moving toward an accrual basis of accounting for Federal
insurance programs, putting in place automatic continuing
appropriations, modifying pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) rules to clarify the
use of projected on-budget surpluses, and making other changes.
My testimony will make the following major points about H.R. 853:
Enacting the budget resolution into law could change the
Congressional budget process into a joint legislative/executive budget
process. That change might have significant advantages, including
potentially swifter resolution of policy differences between the
President and the Congress and more timely action on budgetary
legislation. However, when broad policy differences were substantial,
the President could veto the joint budget resolution, and a budgetary
stalemate could emerge. In that case, fallback procedures in the bill
would allow the Congress to adopt a budget resolution under the
legislative-only process that is currently in place.
Automatic continuing appropriations would address a major
problem in the budget process the annual threat of a government
shutdown caused by lapsed funding authority. That change is intended to
eliminate the funding crisis that awaits policymakers and Federal
agencies each year and may also have beneficial effects on the
legislative process. However, enacting automatic funding for
discretionary programs would also remove one of the true action-forcing
deadlines in the budget process and could favor the continuation of
funding at the current rate.
The procedures for an emergency spending reserve and the
new accounting provisions for Federal insurance have the potential to
improve planning for unanticipated expenses and provide explicit
information on long-term budgetary commitments. Whether those changes
would be likely to improve budgetary control and accountability is
unclear.
Proposed changes that would require the periodic review
and reauthorization of Federal programs might also help promote the
goals underlying the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993.
Overview and Analysis of H.R. 853
The following is a brief overview and analysis of the major
features of the bill.
converting the budget resolution into law
Title I of the bill would convert the concurrent resolution on the
budget into a joint resolution that would become law. April 15 would
remain the target date for final enactment. The contents of the joint
resolution would generally be restricted to aggregate budget levels
(total spending, revenues, deficit or surplus, and debt) and broad
spending breakdowns for mandatory, discretionary (defense and
nondefense), and emergency spending. Functional categories of spending
and reconciliation instructions would be included in the accompanying
committee reports instead of in the text of the resolution itself. If
the President vetoed the joint budget resolution, the Congress would be
authorized to adopt, under expedited procedures, a concurrent
resolution that would serve as the budget resolution for Congressional
enforcement purposes (points of order, committee allocations, and
reconciliation instructions).
Providing for a budget resolution in law could make overall budget
agreement with the President a primary focus of the Congressional
budget process. Whatever its merits, that provision would represent a
major shift from the original purpose underlying the Congressional
Budget Act of 1974. That act was intended to give the Congress, through
the adoption of a concurrent resolution on the budget, the means to
establish and enforce its own budget priorities independent of the
President.
Some Members and observers trace the recent record of budgetary
delay and gridlock to the budget process set forth by the 1974 act. But
it is not clear that the existence of an independent Congressional
budget process has exacerbated delays. It is also not clear that
carving out a formal role for the President in that process will foster
overall agreement and pave the way for timely action on budgetary
legislation. However, in years when budgetary conflict between the
President and the Congress is intense, having a formal mechanism for
reaching broad agreement may have advantages. As proponents point out,
converting the budget resolution into a law effectively formalizes the
informal budget summitry of recent decades, but it has the added
advantage of scheduling summits early each year. When overall
differences were large and could not be bridged, the President would
veto the resolution and the Congress, using the bill's fallback
procedure, could move forward with its own alternative plan much as it
does now. When overall differences were small, the statutory budget
resolution would seem to make little difference one way or the other.
By formalizing budget summitry, however, the joint budget
resolution might also change the dynamics for reaching agreement.
Budget summits have been informal and irregular, and the number and
composition of the participants have varied. Budget summits have not
occurred every year and have not always led to final agreement. In some
years, particularly following multiyear budget agreements, they have
not been needed. In others, the magnitude of the differences precluded
agreement. Simply formalizing the process through a joint budget
resolution would probably not make overall budget agreement easier, and
it might simply highlight and sharpen differences by eliciting a veto
when agreement could not be reached.
Because of the bill's fallback procedure, the Congress would still
be able to adopt a concurrent budget resolution in the event of a veto.
That provision would guard against some of the procedural delays on
budgetary legislation that the Congress would face because of an
impasse with the President over the budget resolution. However, since
the fallback procedure would not go into effect until a veto occurred,
the Congress would still have to reach its own consensus on the budget
resolution before it could move forward under that procedure.
The bill would simplify the budget resolution principally by
removing functional categories of spending and reconciliation
instructions from the text of the resolution and placing them in the
committee report. That change could help to better focus Congressional
debate on broad budget priorities. It would also remove provisions of
the resolution that could create further obstacles to final agreement
with the President and might have uncertain meaning if enacted into
law. However, such a change could also make the resolution less clear
as a guide to policy and might raise questions about the status of
reconciliation instructions to committees under House and Senate rules.
creating a reserve fund for emergencies
Title II of the bill would set up a reserve fund for emergency
spending that is intended to encourage planning for emergencies,
subject emergency spending to budgetary constraints, and establish
criteria for emergency spending. The current exemption for designated
emergencies from enforcement under the discretionary caps and PAYGO
would be repealed.
The bill provides a statutory definition of emergency. In general,
it defines a budget emergency as any unanticipated situation that
requires Federal spending to mitigate, prevent, or respond to ``loss of
life or property, or a threat to national security.'' The President's
budget and the joint budget resolution would be required to include
emergency spending levels as a separate spending category (divided into
discretionary and mandatory amounts). Those levels would have to equal
the average of the amounts enacted for emergencies over the previous 5
years.
When the House or Senate considers legislation with emergency
spending, the Budget Committee Chairman must certify that those amounts
are for an emergency as defined by law. Any legislation that would
exceed the emergency spending levels established in the budget
resolution must be referred to the Budget Committee. If the committee
decides that the spending fits within the statutory definition of
emergency, it may then amend the legislation with a provision exempting
the emergency spending from the discretionary caps or PAYGO
requirement, as appropriate.
Budgeting for emergency spending is inherently difficult and
uncertain. Emergency funds are provided for a wide variety of purposes,
are administered by many agencies, and are often unpredictable. Yet
experience shows that emergencies will indeed arise and on a fairly
regular basis. Since the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990 (BEA) went into
effect, annual emergency spending unrelated to the Persian Gulf War
(which was offset by foreign contributions) has fluctuated between
about $1.5 billion in 1991 and about $21 billion this year, averaging
nearly $9 billion a year. The exemption for emergency spending from BEA
enforcement procedures may have been used as an excuse to avoid
planning for emergencies and may also have served as a loophole in some
years for unnecessary or excessive spending.
The bill's reserve-fund procedure would help to promote better
planning for emergencies. It would establish useful guidelines and
budgetary controls, enforced under the budget resolution, that would
inform the debate and help policymakers more effectively judge both the
merits and the appropriate magnitude of emergency funding measures. In
particular, the codification of an accepted definition of emergency
spending would clearly be an improvement over the current ``anything
goes'' situation.
Under certain circumstances, the reserve-fund procedure could
become cumbersome and could slow consideration of measures to fund
emergencies. Emergency spending typically is included in a number of
regular and supplemental appropriation bills each year. Depending on
when the budget resolution is adopted, action tends to be concentrated
between June and September. Under H.R. 853, emergency reserve amounts
would be released by the Budget Committee Chairmen as qualified bills
were reported and considered. That could become a daunting task when
multiple appropriation bills were reported or were pending before the
Congress.
Whether the bill's emergency spending reserve would hold costs
below historical averages is unclear. Fashioning a purely budgetary
mechanism to reduce or eliminate the need for emergency spending would
be difficult at best. To reduce the pressure to provide emergency
funds, the Congress would need to make changes in the programs that
fund emergency needs for example, to incorporate measures to mitigate
the costs of natural disasters. Uncertainty is likely to remain a
central and unavoidable element of any process designed to budget for
and control emergency expenses, but with or without a new emergency
spending reserve, enacting into law an appropriate definition of what
constitutes an emergency should help reduce abuses.
strengthening accountability for federal spending
Title IV of H.R. 853 would make several changes intended to improve
the accountability and legislative oversight of Federal programs. It
would require Congressional committees to establish a timetable for
reviewing all programs within their jurisdiction including existing
entitlements at least once every 10 years. It would also prohibit the
Congress from considering legislation that provides mandatory spending
for a new program or authorizes discretionary appropriations unless the
legislation would expire after 10 or fewer years. The bill would allow
the Chairman of either the House Budget or the House Appropriations
Committee to offer a floor amendment that would make mandatory spending
for a new program subject to annual appropriation.
One of the most vexing reform issues facing lawmakers is how to
achieve a proper balance between the rigors of the budget process and
the need for effective program oversight. Many lawmakers and observers
are concerned that too much attention is focused each year on budgetary
matters and that the important work of reviewing and evaluating the
performance of Federal programs is too easily pushed aside. For
example, as of the beginning of this year, nearly one-fifth of total
1999 discretionary appropriations funded programs for which the
underlying authorizations of appropriations had expired.
The changes proposed by H.R. 853 are designed to enhance oversight
and accountability. They also implicitly acknowledge the link between
effective oversight and budgetary discipline. In 1993, the Congress
passed the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) to require
Federal agencies to establish strategic plans and performance measures.
Performance measures for Federal programs are now included in the
President's budget alongside the funding requests for those programs.
The act's basic intent is to provide performance measures that can help
lawmakers hold agencies accountable for achieving program objectives
and to allow funding priorities to be based in part on whether agencies
have lived up to their own standards of performance. Regular
legislative review of Federal programs, as envisioned by H.R. 853,
could help support the goals underlying GPRA.
The new requirements, however, could at times impose a heavy burden
on the legislative process. For example, one goal of H.R. 853 seems to
be converting permanent authorizations of appropriations to a periodic
cycle. But doing so might only exacerbate the current problem of
unauthorized appropriations. Expired authorizations are one of the
factors that delay the annual appropriation process. Lawmakers must be
careful to avoid requirements that will only lead to further
bottlenecks for annual appropriations. One option would be to stagger
the program- review schedule for committees so that not all such
reviews were considered at or around the same time.
budgeting for federal insurance
Title V of the bill, the Federal Insurance Budgeting Act of 1999,
would change the budgetary treatment of Federal insurance from a cash
basis to a more prospective method of recognizing the long-term cost of
such programs. The objective is to provide decisionmakers with
information and incentives to better control losses in Federal
insurance. The current budgetary treatment obscures the government's
exposure to risk over the long term and fails to motivate a balancing
of premiums against losses.
Specifically, this reform would require agencies to estimate the
projected insurance premiums and costs, including claims payments and
recoveries, over the life of insurance commitments. The change in the
present value of projected multiyear losses (or gains) to taxpayers
would be reported as outlays (or collections) in the budget. Thus, the
effect of an insurance program on the budget surplus or deficit would
be the change in the expected long-term gain or loss to the government
in the budget year.
For the largest Federal insurance programs, including pension and
deposit insurance, the effects on the budget would be significant. The
key feature of those programs is that their commitments extend far into
the future; premium income is likely to arrive steadily, while losses
occur episodically and unexpectedly. Under cash-basis accounting for
insurance, the current and projected budget years usually show net cash
inflows to the government from premiums, with few losses anticipated
from insured events. Showing net cash inflows is the norm because
premium receipts are expected, but identifying specific future years in
which large numbers of pension or bank failures will occur is
difficult.
Consider, for example, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation
(PBGC), the Federal program that insures the defined benefit pension
plans of private-sector companies. Every year since it came on-budget
in 1981, PBGC has collected more in premiums and other income than it
has paid in pension benefits and administrative expenses. In 1998, when
its net inflow totaled $1.2 billion, the Federal deficit was
consequently $1.2 billion lower. For 1999 and 2000, the President's
budget projects net cash inflows for PBGC of $843 million and $1
billion, respectively.
Although that budgetary picture makes PBGC appear to be a
moneymaker for the U.S. government, cash-based accounting does not
acknowledge the liabilities that the agency has accrued but has yet to
pay and does not address taxpayers' exposure from the insurance
commitments. Although PBGC has assets totaling about $18 billion, it
has also accumulated liabilities to current and future retirees that
total over $12 billion. PBGC's net assets of $5.4 billion stand in
contrast to the agency's report of $15 billion to $17 billion in future
losses that are ``reasonably possible.'' Thus, PBGC's overall financial
position may not be nearly as strong as that implied by cash-based
accounting.
The proposed budgetary treatment of PBGC would balance projections
of premium income with the likelihood that claims will eventually be
paid in whole or in part from those premiums. That approach would
report on the long-term financial status of PBGC but by doing so could
reduce or even eliminate the reported financial gain to the government
from pension insurance. The proposed accounting reform could have a
similar offsetting effect on projected premium income from deposit and
other long-term insurance programs, whose net effect on the budget
under current practice is also to move the budget in the direction of
surplus.
One of the major challenges posed by the proposed reform is the
difficulty of assessing future losses under various Federal insurance
programs. The proposed approach has an advantage over cash-basis
budgeting in that assigning losses to specific years in order to budget
for anticipated costs would not be necessary. Nonetheless, estimating
future losses from insurance commitments would require substantial data
collection and analysis, and there is no assurance that reliable
estimates could be obtained.
The proposed legislation acknowledges the magnitude of that task
and the uncertainty of success by authorizing appropriations to pay the
cost of the analytical work, delaying full implementation until fiscal
year 2006, and terminating the act at the end of fiscal year 2007. The
lengthy transition is appropriate and would give agencies with
operating responsibilities for insurance programs as well as the Office
of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Congressional Budget Office
(CBO) some time to collect the relevant data, develop and test
financial models of those processes, and display the results in the
budget documents on a trial basis. The bill would also require
extensive public disclosure of the methods used to project losses and
provide for public comment and subsequent revision of those methods.
Finally, in fiscal year 2005, OMB, CBO and the General Accounting
Office would each report to the Congress on the advisability and
appropriateness of the new budgetary treatment of Federal insurance
programs. If the assessments contained in those reports were
sufficiently negative, the Congress might want to reevaluate the
changes before they were carried out.
A sharp contrast exists between the deliberate approach envisioned
in H.R. 853 and the much faster timetable of credit reform, a closely
related change in budgetary accounting adopted in 1990. Accounting
under credit reform is more straightforward than the proposed
accounting change for insurance programs because loans and loan
guarantees generally cover fixed periods, whereas the government's
insurance commitments extend indefinitely. The new methods that
agencies developed for anticipating insurance losses during a period of
experimentation and evaluation would be of particular interest.
creating automatic continuing appropriations
The bill would provide for automatic continuing appropriations in
the event that one or more of the 13 regular appropriation bills were
not enacted by the beginning of the fiscal year. It would fund programs
at the current rate the level that was provided for the prior fiscal
year.
That reform would address the problem of the potential budgetary
``train wreck'' that awaits lawmakers at the beginning of each fiscal
year because of delays in enacting annual appropriations. In the post-
World War II era, continuing appropriations (referred to as continuing
resolutions, since they are typically enacted in the form of a joint
resolution) have been enacted in most years. Until the early 1970's,
those measures engendered relatively little controversy. Since then,
however, the intensity of overall budgetary conflict has sometimes made
it difficult even to enact short-term continuing resolutions,
occasionally leading to brief government shutdowns for nonessential
activities. In some years, continuing appropriation laws have also
become last-minute vehicles for major substantive legislation.
Enacting automatic continuing appropriations would end the crisis
atmosphere that surrounds the appropriation process at the end of each
session. It would also end the disruptive effects of potential and
actual government shutdowns. Further, without the availability of a
must-pass continuing resolution, there would be no year-end legislative
vehicle to which lawmakers could attach unrelated policy riders.
However, certain cautions are in order. Automatic appropriations
would bring an end to one of the only action-forcing deadlines in the
budget process, giving an important legislative advantage to defenders
of the status quo. For example, a determined minority in the House or
Senate that opposed changes in current funding levels could more easily
thwart a prevailing consensus in support of those changes. In some
cases, that might work to the President's advantage, especially if he
had enough legislative support to uphold his veto power. Members of the
committee may wish to work with the Appropriations Committee, to which
H.R. 853 was jointly referred, to devise a formula for automatic
continuing appropriations that ensures a reasonable level of continued
funding but also includes procedures to encourage timely action on
regular appropriation bills.
budgeting in an era of surpluses
The bill would change the PAYGO process to require an on-budget
surplus (essentially, a surplus excluding the Social Security trust
funds) projected for the upcoming fiscal year to be included on the
PAYGO scorecard for that year. In general, such a change would make it
possible to enact legislation increasing mandatory spending or cutting
taxes without offsets up to the amount of a projected on-budget surplus
for the year.
That change would add some flexibility to the PAYGO rules without
jettisoning the overall budgetary discipline that they now impose,
since legislation causing an on-budget deficit would still have to be
offset. Further, since PAYGO is enforced 1 year at a time, PAYGO
legislation enacted after the change took effect could require
legislated offsets or even trigger a PAYGO sequestration in later years
if sufficient on-budget surpluses were not also projected in the
sequestration reports for those years. Because the PAYGO requirement is
enforced with OMB estimates, the future use of that change would rely
on the Administration's budget projections.
using current-year levels in baseline budget projections
In general, H.R. 853 would require the budget projections used for
the President's budget and the budget resolution to be compared with
unadjusted current-year levels in addition to current-law baseline
levels. The bill would also require CBO's annual economic and budget
outlook and cost estimates to include comparable levels for the current
year, although CBO already complies with that requirement for the most
part.
Some people have expressed concern about the effects of ``baseline
budgeting.'' In general, they contend that the future budgetary effect
of proposed policy changes should be measured from current unadjusted
spending and revenue levels instead of levels that reflect the
estimated effect of current policies and economic assumptions carried
forward into future years. Although current-year data are available and
are typically used in the annual appropriation process to evaluate
proposed changes in discretionary appropriations, they are not
routinely used in describing the effects of proposals that would change
mandatory spending and revenue laws.
Highlighting current-year data in the President's budget, the
budget resolution, and CBO's analyses and cost estimates could make
those data more accessible and easier to use. However, the current-law
baseline remains essential for lawmakers when considering changes to
mandatory spending programs and taxes.
adding a spending-reduction lockbox
The bill also includes a ``lockbox'' procedure intended to preserve
the savings from amendments to appropriation bills that reduce
spending. The House passed similar legislation in both the 104th and
105th Congresses.
Under the bill's lockbox procedure, any Member offering a spending-
reduction amendment to an appropriation bill would be allowed to
designate whether the savings would be credited to the lockbox, used as
an offset for other appropriations, or remain under the Appropriations
Committees' spending allocations. The Budget Committees would be
responsible for maintaining a ledger of the appropriate distributions
for amendments approved by the House or Senate. For amounts credited to
the lockbox, the discretionary spending limits and Appropriations
Committee allocations would be lowered by an amount that split the
difference between the House and Senate savings.
The bill's lockbox procedure addresses a concern of some Members
that the savings from spending-reduction amendments to appropriation
bills approved by the House or Senate tend to be restored or shifted to
other accounts once the bill reaches the conference committee stage.
The new procedure would ``lock in'' those savings by reducing the
allocations of spending to the Appropriations Committees made under the
budget resolution (after appropriation bills had passed the House and
Senate) and by reducing the statutory discretionary spending limits
(after the bills were enacted into law) by an amount of estimated
savings. A lockbox concept was used in the Line Item Veto Act under
which the discretionary spending limits were reduced by the total
amount of savings from any item vetoes that were not overturned.
The lockbox procedure could improve budgetary discipline, but it
might also make the annual appropriation process more complex and less
flexible. It might be more efficient and less cumbersome for lawmakers
to reevaluate the discretionary spending limits when considering the
joint budget resolution than to do so in piecemeal fashion as
individual appropriation measures were considered and approved.
Conclusion
H.R. 853 is a major budget reform bill. Elements of the measure
such as the emergency spending reforms, the changes in the budgetary
treatment of Federal insurance, and the new requirements for
legislative review and program evaluation could take positive steps
toward addressing certain problems. The major structural reforms in the
bill principally the joint budget resolution and automatic continuing
appropriations could also lead to improvements in the annual budget
process but would not be without potentially significant drawbacks.
To some extent, however, the same could be said of all of the major
budget process reforms enacted since 1974. In general, major budget
reforms should be approached cautiously. They tend to increase overall
complexity, shift power, and have unintended effects. Lawmakers will
want to weigh all of those factors as they consider the significant
changes proposed by H.R. 853 or any other major budget reform proposal.
The extensive changes proposed by the bill also suggest a broader
issue of budget process reform that should be addressed at some point:
is it time to convene a new commission on Federal budget concepts? In
general, Federal budget concepts are based on the recommendations of
the 1967 President's Commission on Budget Concepts. Although the
commission's guidelines continue to apply broadly in the budget
process, they do not address certain fundamental issues that lawmakers
and budget scorekeepers face. For example, various proposals to reform
Social Security, especially those that call for personal retirement
accounts, raise thorny questions about appropriate budgetary treatment.
Further, the dividing line between Federal spending and revenue law has
become blurred, as evidenced by the increasing use of refundable tax
credits as a device for expanding budgetary resources. The use of
public/private partnerships, such as those involving military housing
and various lease-purchase arrangements, also raises questions of
budgetary treatment for which the commission's recommendations provide
little or no guidance.
Those and other issues put budget scorekeepers in a difficult
position as they seek to apply outdated or incomplete concepts to novel
budget policies. That situation suggests the need to reevaluate current
budget concepts and to try to reach a consensus on changes that will
make them comprehensive, clearer, and more effective.
Mr. Chambliss. Mr. Penner.
STATEMENT OF RUDOLPH G. PENNER
Mr. Penner. Mr. Chairman, members, thank you for the
opportunity to testify. I believe that H.R. 853 is a thoughtful
effort to improve the budget process and to adjust it to an era
of surpluses. However, I think there are a few places where
modifications could improve the incentives inherent in the
bill.
Before getting into those issues, let me first support the
proposal to make a budget resolution a joint resolution, rather
than a concurrent resolution. I have long thought that it would
be useful to bring the President into the bargaining process
early. By creating the fall-back of allowing a rapid
consideration of a concurrent resolution if there is no
agreement, you would address the most compelling criticism of a
joint resolution, and that is, the bargaining process could be
very time-consuming and inordinately delay the passage of a
complete budget. Nevertheless, the problem of delays remains a
serious issue.
It would be my hope that in a typical year the time spent
bargaining over aggregates could smooth the way for more rapid
agreements regarding individual policy issues as the year
progresses. But there are risks. While I think it certainly is
worth trying a joint resolution, the Congress should
continually reconsider how it is operating.
I like the bill's approach to insurance programs. As Dan
Crippen just said, conceptually, there is little doubt they
should be estimated on an accrual basis. Practically, there are
problems. It cannot be denied that there are areas where it is
extremely difficult to make the credible estimates needed for
implementing this provision. But as he said, you do allow
considerable time for the agencies doing the estimation work to
work on methodologies, and it is my expectation that they will
be successful.
The bill provides an exception for certain social insurance
programs. For information purposes, I believe that it would be
useful to estimate the contingent liability in the social
insurance programs as well, especially Social Security and
Medicare.
Turning to some areas where I believe that the incentives
created by the bill could be improved, I would especially
single out the portion that attempts to avoid disruptive
closures of government agencies when appropriations actions
have not been completed. Here I come out exactly where Carol
Cox does. I think that allowing spending to continue at last
year's level is too lenient. I think it has to be more painful
to delay action. The automatic appropriation could be set at
the lower of the levels passed by the House or Senate, or if
nothing has been passed, at 95 percent of last year's level.
H.R. 853 makes a valiant attempt to deal with emergency
spending. In considering these provisions, it is important to
recognize that the main problem does not stem from the
procedures for handling emergencies. Severe pressures have been
imposed on those procedures because the Congress is now faced
with caps on discretionary spending that are so severe as to be
impractical politically.
The problem arises because the caps have no programmatic
content when they are passed. That allows them to be lowered
arbitrarily, especially in the outyears. When the outyears
arrive, the Congress is faced with a severe problem. A vast
majority wants to pass programs that violate the caps, but they
do not want to increase the caps implicitly for fear of being
labeled spendthrifts. I doubt that any emergency procedure will
work well unless the Congress faces up to this basic problem.
Obviously, it is not useful to have caps that cannot and
will not be adhered to. I suggest some arbitrary rules for
determining caps which may or may not be very good, but I think
the main point is that we need an explicit debate on the levels
of the caps. If that debate reaches a reasonable conclusion
that a majority accepts, it will be less essential to amend the
emergency procedures.
The emergency procedures established by the bill have one
flaw that could become serious if the current approach for
formulating discretionary caps does not change. It bases the
reserve for emergencies on a 5-year moving average of past
expenditures. I fear that there will be severe pressure to
spend at least the reserve, and because there will be years in
which true emergencies push spending above the reserve, the 5-
year moving average will be placed on a strong, upward trend.
As Carol suggested, I would equate the reserve to some
other variable, perhaps some percent of last year's outlays.
I think the most difficult issue faced by the bill
conceptually involves the effort to retain the discipline
imposed by pay-as-you-go rules while allowing the surplus to be
used for spending increases or tax cuts: PAYGO rules were
clearly designed for an era of deficits. They are no longer
appropriate and probably cannot survive without modification.
I worry, however, about the proposed structure because it
creates a strong incentive for an administration bent on tax
cuts or entitlement increases to promulgate a very rosy
economic scenario and/or to artificially lower discretionary
caps in the out-years hoping that future Congresses will simply
change the goals when deficits emerge, much as happened under
Gramm-Rudman.
This problem could be greatly reduced if the Congress
administered this provision based on CBO estimates rather than
OMB estimates. As I understand the bill, it suggests using OMB
estimates for this particular provision. CBO is much more
constrained in what they can forecast.
Regardless of whether CBO or OMB estimates are used, I
think one should drop or perhaps modify, as Carol suggested,
the requirement that when a deficit does emerge, that past
policy actions must be reversed to the extent they contributed
to the deficit. If you drop that provision, you can avoid the
economic and programmatic disruptions that would stem from
abrupt reversals of policy.
In other words, I am saying that bygones should be bygones.
You will be constrained to some degree by the first estimate of
future surpluses, and hopefully it will be an honest estimate.
After that, I think you should take other measures to rein in
the deficits, if they occur.
It should be understood, however, that if past legislation
phases in tax cuts in a series of steps or entitlement
increases in a series of steps, any remaining steps should be
cut off whenever a deficit emerges.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chambliss. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Rudolph G. Penner follows:]
Prepared Statement of Rudolph G. Penner, Senior Fellow, the Urban
Institute
[The views expressed in this testimony are those of the author and
do not necessarily reflect the views of the trustees and employees of
the Urban Institute.]
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank you for this
opportunity to testify. I believe that H.R. 853 is a thoughtful effort
to improve the budget process and to adjust it to an era of surpluses.
However, I think that there are a few places where modifications could
improve the incentives inherent in the bill.
Before getting into those issues, let me first support the proposal
to make the budget resolution a joint resolution rather than a
concurrent resolution. I have long thought that it would be useful to
bring the President into the bargaining process early. It slightly
enhances his or her influence over budget strategy, which I believe to
be appropriate given our severe constitutional limits on the
President's power over budgetary matters. By creating the fallback of
allowing rapid consideration of a concurrent resolution if the Congress
and the President fail to reach agreement, you address the most
compelling criticism of a joint resolution and that is that the
bargaining process could be very time consuming and inordinately delay
the passage of a complete budget.
Nevertheless, the problem of delays remains a serious issue.
Bargaining over a resolution could take a long time before it is
recognized that there are no grounds for an agreement. It is my hope
that in a typical year, the time spent bargaining over aggregates could
smooth the way for more rapid agreements regarding individual policy
issues as the year progresses. It has to be recognized that there will
be periods in which this will not be true, however. During the Reagan
Administration, there was remarkably little disagreement between the
President and the Congress over total spending. There were, however,
profound disagreements over the division of spending between defense
and nondefense programs. Consequently, some caution is required. My
overall conclusion is that a joint resolution has enough merit to be
tried, but the Congress has to be ready to reconsider if it becomes
evident that the approach is not working efficiently.
I like the bill's approach to insurance programs. Conceptually,
there is little doubt that they should be estimated on an accrual
basis. Practically, it cannot be denied that there are areas where it
is extremely difficult to make credible estimates of the appropriate
accrual amounts. The most difficult issues arise in those areas, such
as deposit insurance, in which there is a tiny probability of a
catastrophic event. Small changes in the absolute value of the
probability can create large changes in the appropriate accrual
estimate. But you allow considerable time for the agencies doing the
estimates to work on methodologies and the results of that work will
determine whether or not this is a practical reform. I suspect that the
CBO will, in fact, be able to resolve most of the difficult conceptual
issues.
The bill provides an exception for certain social insurance
programs. For information purposes, I believe that it would be useful
to estimate the contingent liability in the social insurance programs
as well, especially Social Security and Medicare. This is done, in a
way, when the trustees of those programs examine the financial future
of the trust funds. However, this is not a very useful economic
concept, because the economic burden imposed by those programs is not
directly influenced by the amount of resources held by the trust funds.
Routinely providing an estimate of the present value of the expected
liability and the present expected value of the earmarked payroll tax
would provide valuable complementary information.
Turning to some areas where I believe the incentives created by the
bill could be improved, I would especially single out the portion of
the bill that attempts to avoid disruptive closures of government
agencies when appropriations actions have not been completed. Allowing
spending to continue at last year's level is too lenient in my view. We
all know how easy it is for a determined minority to delay action in
the Congress. I fear that if a majority of the Congress wishes to cut a
program, it may not get done under this rule. Conversely, a minority
may find it easy to thwart increases in a program.
I think that it has to be more painful to delay action. The
automatic appropriation could be set at the lower of the level passed
by the House or Senate, or if nothing has been passed, at 95 percent of
last year's level.
H.R. 853 makes a valiant attempt to deal with ``emergency''
spending. Last year, a particularly large amount of spending that could
not be related to any real emergency was funded by so-called emergency
legislation, thus circumventing the previously legislated caps on
discretionary spending. The bill tightens the definition of an
emergency, gives the Budget Committee Chairman considerable power to
enforce the definition, and sets aside a reserve fund to cover normally
expected natural disasters and other true emergencies.
In considering these provisions, it is important to recognize that
the main problem does not stem from the procedures for handling
emergencies. Severe pressures have been imposed on those procedures,
because the Congress was faced with caps on discretionary spending that
were so severe as to be impractical politically. The problem arises
because the caps have no programmatic content when they are passed.
That allows them to be lowered arbitrarily, especially in the out-
years. When the out-years arrive, the Congress is faced with a severe
problem. A vast majority wants to pass programs that violate the caps,
but they do not want to increase the caps explicitly for fear of being
labeled spendthrifts.
I doubt that any emergency procedure will work well unless the
Congress faces up to this basic problem. Because the caps are
inherently arbitrary when passed, the Congress might wish to consider
an arbitrary rule regarding their growth. The rule would attempt to
strike a balance between realism and fiscal prudence. For example, caps
that allowed 1 percent real growth per year would provide considerable
more flexibility than the current caps while still ensuring that
discretionary spending would not grow faster than the GDP. Such a rule
would have to be revisited from time to time and there would likely be
instances where special provisions and fire-walls are needed for
specific types of spending, e. g. defense. But my main point is that we
need an explicit debate on the levels of the caps. If that debate
reaches a reasonable conclusion, it will be less essential to modify
emergency procedures.
The emergency procedures established by the bill have one flaw that
could become serious if the current approach for formulating
discretionary caps is not changed. It bases the reserve for emergencies
on a 5-year moving average of past expenditures. I fear that there will
be severe pressure to spend at least the reserve and because there will
be years in which true emergencies push spending above the reserve, the
5-year moving average will be placed on a strong upward trend. I would
equate the reserve to some other variable. For example, it could be
equated to some percent of last year's outlays. One percent would
provide somewhat less than was spent last year. One half of 1 percent
would provide something less than was spent on average over the last 5
years.
Another change included in the bill would have the baseline for
discretionary spending defined as last year's nominal spending level
instead of defining it to be last year's level plus an adjustment for
inflation. I do not think that this change will have as important an
effect as some believe, but I have no strong objection so long as CBO
continues to report amounts adjusted for inflation. That will help
policy analysts in and out of government understand what is happening
to the real level of goods and services provided by various programs.
Those who argue that the baseline should hold nominal levels of
discretionary spending constant believe that the current approach
imparts an upward bias to spending. I am not so sure this is the case,
because there are also biases the other way. When I was at CBO, I had
pressures from some committees to raise the baseline for programs that
they were intent on cutting. It was as though they would not initiate
cuts unless they got credit for more significant savings than they got
with the traditional baseline concept. Similarly, a committee may be
more inclined to increase spending on a highly popular program, if they
get credit for a bigger increase relative to the baseline.
The most difficult challenge faced by the bill involves the effort
to retain the discipline imposed by pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) rules while
allowing the surplus to be used for spending increases or tax cuts.
PAYGO rules were clearly designed for an era of deficits. They prohibit
policy changes involving taxes or entitlements that would increase any
deficit during the projection period, which was defined to be 5 years
when PAYGO was first adopted. These same rules now prohibit any
reduction in the projected surplus because of tax or entitlement
changes. Although I favor saving a considerable portion of the
projected unified budget surplus, this is a policy decision and the
formal budget process should not so strongly favor one policy outcome
over another.
The proposed rule would allow projected surpluses to be used up by
tax cuts or entitlement increases. If the projections prove too
optimistic and a deficit emerges, a sufficient portion of the cost of
the previous policy action has to be made up in order to eliminate any
deficit. Otherwise, a sequester will be imposed. If, however, a deficit
emerges because of a recession, the rules would be suspended and there
would be no need to make up for past policy actions. OMB estimates and
projections will be used to enforce these rules.
There are a number of problems with this approach. First, budget
projections might be adjusted by large amounts even if the economy does
not go into a recession. For example, growth can be weaker than
expected, interest rates might be higher, and medical cost growth may
rise faster than expected. The required policy adjustment could be
large enough to impose a substantial negative shock on the economy, or
more likely, the goals will have to be changed as under Gramm-Rudman,
and the whole process will lose credibility.
This problem could arise even if all projections are done honestly.
However, the proposed change creates a strong incentive for the
promulgation of rosy economic scenarios, thus leaving future policy
makers to deal with the problems that arise when the scenarios do not
materialize. The change also creates an incentive to promulgate
unrealistically low caps for discretionary spending in the long-run,
thus making it appear as though there is more room for a tax cut or
entitlement increase. These incentives will tend to increase the size
of future deficit reducing actions, thus increasing the probability of
destabilizing corrective actions.
These problems are formidable, but on the other hand, current PAYGO
rules are so inappropriate for an era of surpluses that I suspect they
will not survive without modification. What then, should we do?
I think that we are better off with a weak variant of PAYGO rather
than with no PAYGO at all. The propensity to promulgate rosy scenarios
and to set unrealistically low spending caps would exist even if there
were no PAYGO. But because the danger of forcing destabilizing shocks
is very real in the PAYGO variant described in this bill, I would
suggest a weaker variant in which bygones are bygones and corrective
action is not required if a deficit emerges. The only thing that
happens is that we go back to traditional PAYGO rules.
One might say that this increases the propensity to assume rosy
scenarios and to lower future discretionary spending caps, because all
future penalties for doing so are removed. That is true. The problem of
the caps would not be so severe, however, if my previous suggestion was
adopted and we had an explicit debate about setting caps in a
realistic, but fiscally prudent manner.
The problem of rosy scenarios is somewhat different. Unless OMB
became totally outrageous in their estimates, the errors in a rosy
scenario are likely to be relatively small for the budget year, but
then they grow mightily in future years. Rosy scenarios are, therefore,
not suited for justifying large initial tax cuts or entitlement
increases. Instead, they work better as a means for justifying large
surplus reducing measures that have a small effect immediately, but are
then phased in over time. If the bill built in a mechanism for cutting
off phase-ins when future deficits were projected, I believe that the
danger posed by rosy scenarios would be greatly reduced.
The danger of rosy scenarios would be further reduced if the
weakened PAYGO rule were based on CBO rather than OMB estimates. CBO
forecasts cannot stray far from that of a consensus of outside
economists. Administrations have more scope for playing with the
numbers. Although not a lawyer, I believe that the rule could be
written in a constitutionally acceptable fashion. When the Supreme
Court ruled that CBO could not play an operational role in
administering Gramm-Rudman, it left intact the ability of CBO to
declare a recession, which in turn allowed the Congress to turn off
Gramm-Rudman.
It is true that sequestration is based on OMB rather than CBO
estimates, but since we are worried about rosy scenarios, the OMB
estimates would not be constraining. When OMB turns out to be less
optimistic than CBO, the difference is seldom very large and in those
times the Congress would have to pay a lot of attention to where OMB
was coming out, but that should not be difficult.
Mr. Chambliss. Mr. Greenstein.
STATEMENT OF ROBERT GREENSTEIN
Mr. Greenstein. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the
opportunity to testify here today, and like the other members
of the panel, I recognize clearly that the authors of this
legislation spent many months and much hard work putting it
together, and clearly the legislation includes some useful
provisions, such as the provision changing the accounting of
Federal insurance programs.
Unfortunately, however, I believe the legislation contains
a number of other provisions that would have unintended, but
nevertheless, harmful effects, both on the budget process and
on the maintenance of fiscal discipline; and that the drawbacks
of the legislation substantially outweigh its advantages.
The problems fall primarily in two broad categories: the
changes in the pay-as-you-go rules and a series of provisions
in the legislation that, taken together, have the effect, even
if unintended, of tilting in favor of tax cuts and entitlement
spending over discretionary spending. Let me take each of those
areas separately.
I should also note, before going into them, the combined
effect here, particularly of the PAYGO change, which I will
discuss first: I think it would be to weaken fiscal discipline
significantly, and while other provisions of the bill
strengthen fiscal discipline, that the net effect of the bill
as a whole is a weakening of the discipline because of the
PAYGO change.
I know Mr. Minge well; we have spent many meetings talking
about budget process issues. I know the last thing in the world
he wishes is to weaken fiscal discipline. I know that is not
the intention of the authors of the bill, but I think it would
be the outcome of the bill.
The fundamental problem in the PAYGO area in this bill is
the change that would enable projected budget surpluses to be
used in full to finance tax cuts or entitlement increases, even
though those surpluses might not fully materialize. CBO
recently conducted an analysis in which it looked at how close
to the mark its estimates of deficits or surpluses for 5 years
out had been over the last--I can't remember now exactly if it
was 15 years or 20 years, somewhere along that line.
CBO noted that, if you took the average amount by which its
forecast was either too high or too low for 5 years out, and
you applied it as a percentage of GDP to today, it would mean
that the forecast for 2004, 5 years from now, could be too high
or too low by somewhere in the vicinity of $250 billion a year
or more.
The CBO forecast of the on-budget surplus for 2004 is $63
billion. Let's suppose that this legislation passed and changes
were made that consumed those $63 billion between taxes and
spending. Let's also assume for the moment that the surplus
projection turned out to be too high by about $50 billion; that
is a small fraction of the historical average by which the
forecast has been off.
The $50 billion overage would require a sequester that
would entail not only a 4 percent reduction in Medicare
provider payments, but complete elimination--100 percent
sequestration--of farm price supports, crop insurance, child
support enforcement, social services block grants and other
programs.
One may say, well, that would not happen, and the idea is
to get Congress and the President to agree to $50 billion a
year in savings. But $50 billion a year is about double, or
close to double the biggest deficit reduction in the first year
of any major deficit reduction plan Congress has considered in
recent memory, including the one that was vetoed in 1995, which
didn't have anything close to $50 billion in first-year
savings.
Where I am heading is that faced with a sequester of that
magnitude, the Gramm-Rudman experience of the late 1980's would
most likely repeat itself. We would change the targets, we
would live with the deficits. Fiscal discipline would have been
weakened.
Adding to this problem, the bill specifies that in
projecting the future on-budget surpluses, CBO and OMB are to
assume that the discretionary spending level for all years for
which there isn't a cap is a frozen at the level of the last
year for which a cap exists.
If that procedure had been used in the CBO forecast that is
now in use for the period through 2009, it would show a surplus
forecast about $430 billion larger during that period than the
CBO forecast we have been using over the last several months.
That wouldn't be a realistic forecast.
Congress wouldn't be able to live with freezes that went
that far out, as the current struggle over the discretionary
caps is indicating this year. But it would create a bias toward
the larger tax cuts and entitlement increases now, because the
projection of the surplus would be greater and then when we got
to the future, we would be in very serious trouble if those
outyear numbers for discretionary spending could not be made to
stick.
This leads me into a third related problem with the PAYGO
changes. Under current budget rules, one cannot lower the
discretionary caps to finance tax cuts or entitlement
increases. That rests on the very reasonable proposition that
discretionary caps last only a few years and most tax cuts and
entitlement increases are permanent. Under this bill, I think
it is too easy to set unrealistically low caps for the outyears
or even lower them for the outyears, while making sure there is
enough money for the current year or two for discretionary
spending and then getting us into fiscal trouble down the road.
It is easy to design entitlement increases that phase in
and don't cost a lot in the first few years. It is easy to
design tax cuts that pay for themselves by accelerating
revenues for a year or two, and then lose a lot of money. Under
this bill it is too easy to have artificially low discretionary
caps in the outyears that give you the surplus funds to cover
the entitlement costs and tax increases, but which can't be
sustained when we get to the outyears.
The current experience with the caps set under the 1997
budget agreement, I think should be a warning here about how
easy it is to set unsustainably low caps in the outyears.
For all of these reasons, I fear that this bill would lead
to a significant weakening of fiscal discipline. Does this
suggest we should maintain the current pay-as-you-go rules
forever, regardless of the magnitude of a projected on-budget
surplus? Well, no, that would not be realistic, but it suggests
to me two steps we could take.
First, our biggest challenge is not only in policy, but in
long-term fiscal discipline--where are we going to be, what are
our budget projections 20, 30 years from now when the baby
boomers retire and the demands that Social Security and
Medicare place on the budget will be most severe? I think it is
unwise to allow the projected surpluses to be consumed before
we know whether we might need some part of them to work out a
bipartisan agreement that shores up Social Security and
Medicare and eases their effect on the budget down the road.
Secondly, I think even after Social Security and Medicare
reforms are resolved, it is very unwise to allow 100 percent of
a projected surplus 5 years down the road to be used now for a
tax cut or entitlement increase. It seems a more prudent course
would be to have some percentage--what is the right percentage,
is it 50 percent; I am not sure exactly what it is, but some
percentage, not 100 or very near 100--that could be used and,
better yet, that that percentage be varied.
A larger percentage could be allowed in the first year or
two, but the percentage of the projected surplus that should be
allowed to be spent in this fashion should decline the farther
one gets into the future because the projections are more
uncertain; the farther one gets into the future, the greater
the risk the surpluses wouldn't materialize. That would be a
much better way to go than a look-back provision, as the
current bill has, that says, gee, if the surpluses turned out
not to materialize in the way we projected 5 years earlier, we
are going to set up a big sequester that probably would never
happen.
On the discretionary side, I referred to a tilt in favor of
tax cuts and entitlements over discretionary that is in part
what I have already mentioned, the ability to place low or
reduced cap levels in the outyears to fund tax cuts or
entitlement increases. It also relates to several other
provisions in the bill.
The lockbox provision I think is a troublesome one. It
would allow the caps to be lowered for all years for which
there is a cap, whenever either the House or the Senate pass a
cut in an appropriations bill on the floor, even if the other
House might reject the cut by such a wide margin that it could
not be sustained in conference.
More troubling, it would allow a cut passed on the floor in
a pork-barrel project that only had a 1-year effect on
spending, a one-time item, to result in a reduction in the caps
for every year for which the cap remained. In fact, because of
that effect, I believe it could make it harder to cut some
pork-barrel projects, because some Members who otherwise would
be willing to vote for that cut would not be willing to vote
for it if the result was a reduction in the caps for every year
for which a cap remained.
I recognize that the bill allows a member to designate that
a cut not go into the lockbox, but I actually think by forcing
a member to say it does or doesn't go into the lockbox, the
legislation runs the risk of dividing supporters on the floor
who might vote for a cut in a discretionary program. It divides
them between those who are not that interested in voting for
the cut, if it doesn't reduce overall discretionary spending,
because they are the shrink-government faction, and those who
think that it represents good policy but they don't want to
reduce the caps.
If Members do not designate a cut as going into the
lockbox, the shrink-government faction will vote against it; if
Members go the other way and say it does go into the lockbox,
some Members who agree it is an unnecessary expenditure will
vote against the cut because they don't want to lower the caps
for all years for which there a cap.
I think the job is to set the caps at an appropriate level,
enforce them and tighten up on emergency designations, not to
go the lockbox route.
I also share the fear of a number other people that
testified today that a 12-month automatic, continuing
resolution makes it too easy to have automatic CRs that
maintain the status quo supplant regular appropriations bills.
The risk of that is enhanced by the fact that under the joint
resolution provision of the bill, appropriations bills would no
longer be able to come to the floor after May, even if a budget
resolution had not been agreed to. This would mean that in
years in which there were long negotiations between the
President and the Congress on a joint resolution, but not a
veto, the movement of the regular appropriations bills would be
delayed on the front end; and then if you didn't get them done
by September 30th on the back end, bingo, you get an automatic
12-month CR.
It seems to me that in years for which there are budget
caps about which there is not big controversy--and most years
we have had budget caps haven't been like this year; they have
been years in which the caps have been sustained--why for years
in which there is a budget cap on discretionary already in law,
appropriators should be allowed to take their bills to the
floor by May, as they can today, if a resolution hasn't been
worked out.
If there is an interest in doing automatic CRs, they ought
not to be for 12 months. Maybe they should be for a month. I am
not sure of the exact time frame, but they shouldn't be for 12
months, because that makes it too easy for them to substitute
for regular bills.
For all of these reasons, I come to the conclusion, as I
mentioned at the start, that the bill poses some serious
problems that outweigh its advantages, and that absent major
changes, it would weaken fiscal discipline, and enhance the
tilt we already have toward taxes and entitlement spending over
discretionary spending. It would increase problems more than it
would alleviate them.
Thank you.
Mr. Chambliss. Thank you, Mr. Greenstein.
[The prepared statement of Robert Greenstein follows:]
Prepared Statement of Robert Greenstein, Executive Director, Center on
Budget and Policy Priorities
I appreciate the invitation to testify before the committee. I am
Robert Greenstein, executive director of the Center on Budget and
Policy Priorities. The Center is a non-profit, non-partisan policy
institute here in Washington that specializes both in fiscal policy and
in programs and policies affecting low- and moderate-income families
and individuals. The Center is funded primarily from foundation grants.
It receives no Federal funding.
Some of the provisions of H.R. 853, the Comprehensive Budget
Process Reform Act, would make useful improvements in the Federal
budget process. I would take special note of the legislation's proposed
changes in the budgetary treatment of Federal insurance programs.
Unfortunately, the legislation also contains provisions that would
have quite undesirable effects. Various provisions of H.R. 853 could
make the budget process less efficient than it is today and lead to
long delays in action on appropriations bills. H.R. 853 also could lead
to larger reductions in discretionary programs than the reductions
already envisioned under the 1997 Balanced Budget Act. In addition, it
could lead to automatic cuts in Medicare and other programs during
economic slowdowns and weaken budget mechanisms that are preserving
budget surpluses which may turn out to be needed for Social Security
reform. Overall, I believe the legislation would damage the budget
process significantly and that its drawbacks substantially outweigh its
advantages. I would recommend against enacting this legislation.
The bill would be likely to squeeze discretionary programs
inordinately. It would likely have this effect because of the combined
effect of a number of features of the legislation. H.R. 853 would
effectively allow the caps on discretionary spending to be reduced to
pay for tax cuts and entitlement expansions. It also would lower the
discretionary caps when either the House or Senate passed an amendment
to an appropriations bill reducing funding for a discretionary program.
The bill would likely lead to delays in consideration of
appropriations bills because it would repeal the provision of current
law allowing appropriations bills to be brought to the House floor
after May 15 if a budget resolution has not yet been approved; it would
bar floor action on appropriations bills until work on the budget
resolution has been completed. Moreover, the bill would lengthen the
time it takes to finish work on a budget resolution because it would
convert the resolution into a joint resolution that requires a
Presidential signature.
Under H.R. 853, if projected surpluses are used to pay for
tax cuts and the surpluses subsequently fail to materialize as forecast
which could easily happen if the economy performs less well than
forecast or tax cuts turn out to be more expensive than was assumed at
the time they were enacted cuts in Medicare, student loans, farm price
supports, and various other entitlements would be triggered through the
sequestration process.
The bill would alter the ``pay-as-you-go'' rules, allowing
projected surpluses in the non-Social Security budget to be used to
finance tax cuts and entitlement increases before Social Security
reform is approved and before it is known whether a portion of these
funds are needed to fashion Social Security or Medicare solvency
legislation that can secure majority support in both houses.
I will elaborate on these points below. Before doing so, I would
like to caution that we should be very careful about making large
changes in the budget rules established under the Budget Enforcement
Act of 1990. While it is sometimes said that the budget process is
broken, most budget experts I know think otherwise and believe the
Budget Enforcement Act of 1990 has been remarkably effective. The
regimen it established of discretionary caps and pay-as-you-go
requirements has been instrumental in helping us get from multi-hundred
billion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see to budget surpluses.
When the BEA was enacted, some predicted the discretionary caps
would routinely be busted by large amounts and the pay-as-you-go
requirements would not last long. Both predictions proved mistaken.
That the emergency designation of the law was stretched last fall and
again in the current Kosovo supplemental reflects the fact that the
1997 budget agreement set unrealistically austere caps, not that the
process as a whole has broken down. Moreover, changes to tighten the
procedures for handling emergencies and making emergency designations
can be instituted without the more sweeping changes that H.R. 853 would
make.
Let me turn to what I regard as the principal shortcomings of the
legislation.
Impact on Discretionary Programs
Discretionary programs constitute a declining share of the budget.
At $575 billion in fiscal year 1999, discretionary spending accounts
for 34 percent of the budget and 7 percent of the economy (i.e., of the
Gross Domestic Product). The Congressional Budget Office projects that
if discretionary spending stays within the caps through 2002 and grows
with inflation thereafter, discretionary spending will decline to 29
percent of the budget and 5 percent of GDP by 2009. By contrast, 10
years ago in 1989, discretionary spending constituted 43 percent of the
budget and 9 percent of GDP.
Various provisions of H.R. 853 would directly or indirectly place
additional downward pressure on funding for discretionary programs. The
bill contains a ``lock-box'' provision that would cause reductions in
the discretionary caps. After the House and Senate had completed floor
action on any appropriations bill but before conference on the bill,
the total amount of funding cuts each chamber had approved in floor
action on the bill would be averaged.\1\ The discretionary caps would
be reduced by this average amount for the fiscal year in question, as
well as for all succeeding years for which a cap has been established.
These cap reductions would be instituted even if one house had approved
a cut by a narrow margin and the other house had decisively rejected
it. As a result, one house's decision to cut a bill would force the
other house to lower total appropriations without any concordance from
that other chamber through normal conference procedures.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ A Member offering an amendment on the House or Senate floor
could specify that the savings the amendment produced not go into the
lock-box.
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In addition, the lock-box mechanism could lead the discretionary
caps to be reduced by more than the amount needed to ``lock away''
savings created by cutting a particular project. Amendments reducing
funding for an appropriations bill would result in a reduction in the
discretionary caps not just for the fiscal year covered by the
appropriations bill but for each fiscal year after that for which there
is a statutory cap. If appropriations are cut for a one-time project
say, providing fewer funds for a NASA space-shuttle procurement or a
particular construction project future cuts in other programs would be
required.
(Ironically, one effect of this provision might be to make it more
difficult to reduce low-priority spending, an effect that is the
opposite of what the bill's sponsors seek to achieve. Suppose an
amendment to cut a big-ticket item, such as a NASA procurement, is
offered. Those who favor the cut are likely to fall into two groups
those who want to use the savings to shrink government and those who
want to shift the funds to other areas. Under current rules, both
groups will join to vote for the cut. Under the procedures H.R. 853
would establish, the two groups may divide. If the amendment making the
cut places the savings in the ``lock-box,'' many in the ``reorder
priorities'' faction may oppose it, as it will shrink the overall
resources available for discretionary programs. If the amendment does
not place the savings in the lock box, the ``cut government spending''
faction may oppose it. The result could be that fewer amendments to cut
low-priority spending are approved and more, rather than less, of the
status quo is maintained. If that occurred, the provision would retard
efforts to reorder budget priorities.)
Using Discretionary Cuts to Finance Permanent Tax Cuts or Entitlement
Increases
H.R. 853 also would enable tax cuts and entitlement expansions to
be financed by reductions in the discretionary spending caps, since it
would allow non-Social Security surpluses to be used for tax cuts and
entitlement increases, and reductions in the discretionary caps would
enlarge these surpluses. Allowing tax cuts and entitlement expansions
to be financed by reducing the discretionary caps raises several
concerns.
The discretionary caps typically are set for only a few years at a
time; currently, the caps are in place through 2002. Lowering the caps
would thus assure savings for only several years. Tax cuts and
entitlement expansions, by contrast, are usually permanent and often
grow in cost over time. Allowing policymakers to pay for permanent tax
cuts and entitlement expansions with reductions in the discretionary
caps that provide short-term savings could lead to significantly
smaller surpluses or larger deficits in years to come. In addition,
because reducing the discretionary caps for future years does not
itself entail cutting specific programs, it could become too easy for
policymakers to pay for popular tax cuts or entitlement increases by
lowering the discretionary caps.
Moreover, because the effects of reducing the discretionary caps
are not felt immediately, these caps could be lowered by unrealistic
amounts to pay for tax cuts, with the result that the caps subsequently
are raised back up and the anticipated savings not secured.
The savings in discretionary programs assumed as part of the 1997
budget agreement may be a case in point. The 1997 budget agreement
instituted caps to keep discretionary spending at a virtual freeze over
5 years, requiring substantial reductions in discretionary programs in
inflation-adjusted terms, with these reductions concentrated in the
last several years of the 5-year budget period. It now appears the caps
are unrealistically tight and will probably be raised.
Exacerbating this problem, the bill specifies that in determining
the size of the budget surplus and hence the amount available for tax
cuts and entitlement increases a ``baseline'' must be used that assumes
discretionary spending is frozen in all future years for which a
statutory cap is yet to be established, with no adjustment for
inflation. This represents a departure from current practice under
which baseline levels for discretionary spending for future years
without a cap are set equal to the prior year's levels, with an
adjustment for inflation. Under H.R. 853, the baseline would assume
large reductions over time in the levels of services that discretionary
programs would provide. For example, using CBO's inflation assumptions,
a baseline that contains no adjustment for inflation would assume a 12
percent cut in service levels after 5 years and a 23 percent cut by the
tenth year.\2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Some historical background may be of use here. After passage of
the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, decisions
were needed as to how to construct baselines for discretionary
programs. A debate ensued concerning whether the baseline for
discretionary program spending should reflect the prior year's level
adjusted for inflation and population or the prior year's level
adjusted only for inflation. Some budget experts, such as Robert
Reischauer--then a high-ranking CBO official--argued the baseline
should represent the funding level that would maintain current levels
of service per person--and, hence, that the baseline should adjust for
both inflation and changes in population. The course of adjusting only
for inflation was adopted. Current baseline procedures show the levels
needed to maintain the general purchasing power of discretionary
programs; under these procedures, discretionary spending as adjusted
for inflation declines over time on a per capita basis.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Altering the baseline procedures that have been in place for nearly
a quarter of a century and eliminating inflation adjustments in
projecting discretionary spending levels, as H.R. 853 does, will make
budget surpluses look much larger and hence enable tax cuts to be
substantially bigger. This one provision of the bill would artificially
swell the non-Social Security surplus by more than $436 billion over
the next 10 years. (See Table 1.) This could lead to much larger tax
cuts and entitlement increases that, in turn, could lock in frozen or
otherwise low levels of discretionary spending, necessitating
substantial reductions in the levels of service that discretionary
programs provide, since the tax cuts or entitlement expenses would have
consumed the resources needed to support discretionary appropriations
at a more adequate level.
In fact, under H.R. 853, if tax cuts had been approved that
consumed the on-budget surplus, subsequent action to raise the
discretionary caps to facilitate the passage of appropriations bills
could trigger a sequester of Medicare and other entitlement programs.
This would make it very difficult to raise the discretionary caps if
the caps proved excruciatingly tight. In short, H.R. 853 could lead to
deep cuts in discretionary programs.
TABLE 1.--DISCRETIONARY SPENDING: CURRENT BASELINE, COMPARED TO FROZEN BASELINE UNDER NUSSLE-CARDIN-GOSS PROPOSAL
[In billions of dollars]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fiscal Year
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10-year
total
2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2000 to
2009
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total discretionary spending:
Current baseline\1\.................................... $568.4 $583.2 $598.3 $613.9 $629.9 $646.2 $663.0 $680.3 $6,130.7
Nussle-Cardin-Goss proposed baseline\2\................ $568.4 $568.4 $568.4 $568.4 $568.4 $568.4 $568.4 $568.4 $5,694.7
Nussle-Cardin-Goss baseline, as dollar reduction from $0.0 -$14.8 -$29.9 -$45.5 -$61.5 -$77.8 -$94.6 -$111.9 -$436.0
current baseline..........................................
Nussle-Cardin-Goss baseline, as percentage reduction from 0.0% -2.5% -5.0% -7.4% -9.8% -12.0% -14.3% -16.4% -7.1%
current baseline..........................................
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The current baseline assumes that discretionary spending will be at its capped level while the caps are in place, and will grow with inflation
starting in 2003, when there are no caps.
\2\ Under the Nussle-Cardin-Goss proposal, the baseline would assume that discretionary spending will be at its capped level while the caps are in
place, and be frozen at the prior year's levels starting in 2003, when there are no caps.
Source: CBO January 1999 Baseline Budget Projections, Assuming Compliance with Discretionary Spending Caps.
Delays on Appropriations Bills
H.R. 853 would be likely to lead to lengthy delays in action on
appropriations bills. The appropriations committees would be prevented
from sending appropriations bills to the House floor until work on the
budget resolution had been completed. By contrast, current budget rules
allow the House Appropriations Committee to send appropriations bills
to the floor if action on the budget resolution has not been concluded
by May 15.
In addition, the bill would change the budget resolution from a
concurrent resolution to a joint resolution. Getting the two houses of
Congress to agree on a budget resolution has often proved to be a
lengthy process even when the same party controls both houses.
Developing a budget resolution that also must win the President's
approval and signature, and would have the force of law, almost
certainly would be a lengthier undertaking. (H.R. 853 would allow a
concurrent resolution to be used instead of a joint resolution if a
joint resolution had passed Congress and been vetoed by the President.)
H.R. 853 consequently would make the process of passing a budget
resolution more difficult and time consuming, while barring
appropriations bills from coming to the House floor until the budget
resolution had been approved, regardless of how long that might take.
In many years, floor action on appropriations bills probably would not
be able to commence until late in the year. In years in which budget
agreements are delayed, the appropriations committees could lose months
of valuable time and find themselves under great strain to put together
and pass bills in compressed timeframes late in the year.
H.R. 853 would bar action on appropriations bills prior to approval
of a budget resolution even if statutory caps are in place on
discretionary spending. Yet such caps make the budget resolution
largely superfluous insofar as discretionary spending levels are
concerned. When caps are in place, there is little reason to delay
appropriations actions for long periods until a budget resolution is
adopted; most budget resolutions simply adopt the discretionary caps
already in law. This aspect of the legislation seems particularly ill-
advised.
Automatic CR
H.R. 853 also could make it more difficult in another respect to
pass appropriations bills. It would establish an ``automatic continuing
resolution'' that would maintain funding at the prior year's level for
programs in appropriations bills not enacted when a fiscal year
commenced. The automatic CR would not expire after a few weeks or
months, but would last for the full fiscal year unless superseded by
passage of the appropriations bill in question.
Although the automatic CR provision is intended to avert government
shutdowns, its principal effect could be to make it more likely that
Congress would fail to work out agreements on controversial
appropriations bills because a year-long CR would kick in
automatically. The fact that the automatic CR could remain in effect
for a full year, rather than expiring after a few weeks as most current
CRs do, would ease pressure to work out agreements on regular
appropriations bills. Moreover, the automatic CR provision could
encourage minority Senate factions of 41 or more Senators to use
filibusters to block appropriations bills to which they objected, since
doing so would not threaten to disrupt government operations.
The result could be that automatic CRs would begin to supplant some
appropriations bills. If so, the effect would be unfortunate. Relying
upon automatic CRs rather than passing regular appropriations bills
would reduce government efficiency and effectiveness since it would
keep Congress from addressing changing priorities. Funding levels for
programs covered by automatic CRs would be stuck at the prior year's
level rather than increased for some programs and decreased for others
to reflect changes in need. Permanent CRs frustrate efforts both to
fund promising new initiatives and to pare back less-effective,
outdated, and less-important programs. If this provision of the H.R.
853 led to more reliance on CRs and fewer enacted appropriations bills,
the status quo would be reinforced at the expense of more responsive
and effective government.
Effects on Social Security Reform
The ``pay-as-you-go'' budget rules currently in place require that
entitlement increases and tax cuts be paid for with reductions in other
entitlement programs or revenue-raising measures. These rules apply
whether the budget is in deficit or surplus. Enacted in 1990, the pay-
as-you-go rules have played a large role in eliminating deficits and,
over the past year, in preserving projected surpluses.
H.R. 853 would alter these rules to allow policymakers to use non-
Social Security surpluses to finance tax cuts and entitlement
increases. Offsetting tax increases or entitlement reductions would not
be needed. Although a provision of this nature may ultimately make
sense, enacting it now could make it more difficult to reform Social
Security and Medicare.
Plans to restore long-term Social Security and Medicare solvency
may require more resources than the Social Security surplus itself
provides; some temporary general revenue transfers from the non-Social
Security surplus to the Social Security and/or Medicare trust funds may
be necessary to fashion solvency legislation that can pass. If action
is taken to alter budget rules so the non-Social Security surplus can
be consumed by tax cuts and entitlement increases before legislation
restoring Social Security and Medicare solvency is approved, resources
that may prove necessary for solvency legislation may disappear. That
could make it more difficult to secure agreement on Social Security and
Medicare legislation. (It also could mean that whatever Social Security
and Medicare solvency legislation ultimately is enacted would have to
contain larger benefit reductions than might otherwise be the case,
because resources that could have been used to bolster the trust funds
would be gone.)
Sequesters If Surpluses Do Not Materialize
This provision of the bill also poses another problem. Projected
surpluses in the non-Social Security budget would essentially be used
as contingent offsets for tax cuts or entitlement increases. If the
surplus for a fiscal year subsequently turned out smaller than had been
projected, the tax cut or entitlement expansion financed from the
projected surpluses would no longer be considered to have been fully
financed. To secure the needed financing, a sequester that cut Medicare
and other various entitlement programs (including guaranteed student
loans, the child support enforcement program, the social services block
grant, farm price supports, and crop insurance, among others), would be
triggered unless Congress and the President acted swiftly to fill the
financing hole by cutting entitlement programs, raising taxes, or
lowering the discretionary caps.
This provision of the H.R. 853 poses dangers to Medicare and
various other entitlements. Policymakers would pass permanent tax cuts
and/or entitlement increases based on projections of surpluses that
could prove too optimistic. CBO and OMB deficit and surplus projections
have been off by large margins in recent years, underestimating
deficits substantially in some years and overestimating deficits or
underestimating surpluses in others. If this provision of the bill
becomes law and paves the way for large tax cuts this year, but
surpluses subsequently turn out much smaller than current projections
assume, Medicare and other entitlement programs could face large
across-the-board cuts unless Congress acted swiftly to pass deep
program reductions or sizable tax increases.
For example, CBO's January 1999 forecast shows a $63 billion non-
Social Security surplus in 2004. Congress might pass a tax cut that
costs $63 billion in 2004 without any offsets and assume the surplus
would cover it. Suppose that when 2004 arrives, however, the non-Social
Security surplus for that year is only $5 billion (not counting the
effects of the tax cut). CBO deficit and surplus estimates made 5 years
in advance have, on average, been off by more than that amount.\3\ If
this occurred, the President would have to order an across-the-board
cut of $58 billion unless Congress passed legislation cutting programs
or raising taxes by that amount.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ See Congressional Budget Office, The Economic and Budget
Outlook: Fiscal Years 2000-2009, January 1999, p. 81.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
A $58 billion sequester would be larger than the biggest first-year
savings ever considered in any congressional budget plan of the last
two decades. It would cut Medicare provider payments by 4 percent and
entirely eliminate a number of programs, including farm price supports,
crop insurance, the Social Services block grant, and payments to states
for the child support enforcement program.
This would be particularly problematic for another reason as well.
One of the most common reasons a surplus projection can turn out to be
too high is that the economy has slowed since the projection was made.
During economic slowdowns, revenues are lower than forecast, while
expenditures for unemployment insurance, food stamps, and other
programs are higher.
Most economists agree that cutting spending or increasing taxes
when the economy is weak can push a faltering economy into recession.
This, however, is precisely what would be required under H.R. 853 if a
large tax cut or entitlement increase were enacted on the basis of
projected surpluses but the surpluses failed to materialize because the
economy weakened. Congress would have to raise taxes or cut spending or
an automatic across-the-board spending cut would occur while the
economy already was heading south.
This feature of H.R. 853 would essentially resurrect one of the
components of the 1985 Gramm-Rudman-Hollings law most responsible for
that law's failure. The Gramm-Rudman-Hollings legislation established
fixed deficit targets, enforced by across-the-board cuts if the targets
were missed. It ignored the fact that because deficits swell when the
economy slows and for other reasons beyond policymakers' control, the
law required deepening cuts as the economy weakened. As a result, large
sequesters would threaten, especially when the economy could least
absorb them. Since Congress and the President could not tolerate large
cuts when the economy weakened or when deficit targets were missed by
large margins for other reasons beyond policymakers' control, they
would engage in large-scale budget deception to make it appear as
though deficit targets would be met when everyone knew otherwise, and
ultimately, when all else failed and crisis loomed, they would change
the targets. Eventually, the unsuccessful Gramm-Rudman-Hollings process
was replaced with the much more realistic and successful procedures the
Budget Enforcement Act of 1990 established. The BEA has maintained and
enforced fiscal discipline without requiring fiscal retrenchment when
the economy weakens or deficit forecasts become more adverse due to
factors that policymakers cannot control.
The problems that this feature of H.R. 853 could cause would not be
limited to periods when growth was slowing. For example, tax-cut
legislation could turn out to cost more than projected because
inventive tax lawyers and corporate finance departments found ways to
create tax shelters Congress had not intended. If tax-cut legislation
turned out to cost more than forecast and hence was not fully offset,
H.R. 853 could trigger a sequester of Medicare and other entitlements.
The sequestration would not touch the tax provisions that had caused
the problem.
CBO and OMB forecasts of future surpluses also could prove too
optimistic for a number of other reasons. CBO has cautioned that its
surplus forecasts may be off by large amounts if revenues grow more
slowly than it has forecast. Analysts do not fully understand why
revenues have grown more rapidly than projected in recent years, and
they consequently do not know the extent to which the factors that have
caused this unexpected revenue growth are temporary or permanent.
Revenue growth in future years could be either lower or higher than CBO
currently projects and by substantial amounts. If revenue growth turns
out to be significantly lower but the projected surpluses have been
used to finance large tax cuts and other expenditures, as H.R. 853
would allow, deficits in the non-Social Security part of the budget
would threaten, and large sequesters would loom.
Similarly, a drop in the stock market would result in lower-than-
expected revenue collections, since less would be collected in capital
gains taxes. That, too, could trigger a large sequester of Medicare and
other programs.
CBO this year devoted a full chapter of its annual report on the
budget and the economy to the uncertainty of its projections. It warned
that ``considerable uncertainty'' surrounds its budget estimates
``because the U.S. economy and the Federal budget are highly complex
and are affected by many economic and technical factors that are
difficult to predict. Consequently, actual budget outcomes almost
certainly will differ from the baseline projections . . .'' \4\ CBO
reported that if its estimate of the surplus for 2004 proves to be off
by the average amount that CBO projections made 5 years in advance have
proven wrong during the past decade, the forecast for 2004 could be too
high or too low by $300 billion.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ Congressional Budget Office, The Economic and Budget Outlook:
Fiscal Years 2000-2009, January 1999, p. 81.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is a reason for exercising caution in the use of projected on-
budget surpluses and not enacting changes in budget rules that allow
the projected surpluses to be used in full for tax cuts and entitlement
expansions. If large tax cuts or entitlement expansions are passed but
surpluses of the magnitude projected do not materialize, H.R. 853 could
lead to large sequesters of Medicare and certain other mandatory
programs, large cuts in other parts of the budget, or perhaps most
likely changes in law to evade these requirements, with the result that
deficits would return.
Emergency Spending Procedures
H.R. 853's provisions to change procedures relating to emergency
spending also warrant mention. There is broad agreement that reforms
are needed in this area, and many of H.R. 853's emergency spending
provisions seem useful. But these provisions also include several
questionable changes. Of greatest concern, the emergency and the PAYGO
provisions of H.R. 853 seem inconsistent; under the bill, emergency
spending could trigger a sequester of Medicare and other entitlements.
H.R. 853 would establish an emergency reserve fund, funded within
the discretionary caps. When a discretionary spending item is
designated an emergency, funding would come from the reserve fund. (The
amount placed in the reserve fund would be based on a historical
average of the annual levels of emergency spending in recent years,
which would be about $9 billion a year. If, in a given year,
emergencies required more money than was available in the reserve, the
budget committees could agree to exempt the additional funding from the
caps.) This provision would not take effect until the discretionary
caps are raised so that the caps could be set at a level that takes the
reserve fund into account.
While these provisions seem reasonable, they do not mesh with the
provisions of the bill that can trigger sequesters if on-budget
deficits threaten to return. Suppose the projected surpluses have been
used for tax cuts and some spending increases, and a major disaster or
foreign military involvement occurs that requires emergency spending
beyond the amount in the reserve. Congress could agree to designate the
additional disaster or defense spending as emergency spending, but
because this spending would result in a deficit, a sequester of
Medicare and other entitlements would be triggered.
The bill also appears somewhat too restrictive in attempting to
define what an ``emergency'' is. To be considered an emergency, five
criteria would have to be met. Two of these criteria are that the
emergency be both ``sudden, which means quickly coming into being or
not building up over time'' and ``unforeseen, which means not predicted
or anticipated as an emerging need.'' The requirement that an emergency
be both sudden and unforeseen would appear to bar emergency
appropriations that are intended to address problems that were foreseen
or developed gradually but turn out to be considerably more severe or
long-lasting than had been anticipated, such as, potentially, needs for
additional funding for peace-keeping in Bosnia. If problems such as
these did not meet the new definition of emergency, other discretionary
programs would have to be cut when urgent funding needs for matters
such as these arose.
The bill also would accord unusual power in implementing its
emergency provisions to the Budget Committees. Whenever any committee
approved legislation that sought to designate an item as an emergency,
the Budget Committees would determine whether the item met the
definition of emergency and consequently could receive funding from the
emergency spending reserve. Moreover, it would be very difficult for a
floor amendment to be offered to fund an emergency need; H.R. 853
includes no mechanism to handle emergencies through a floor amendment.
A proposal to offer such an amendment on the House floor would
generally trigger a point of order.
Federal Insurance Programs
Having been critical of a number of the provisions of H.R. 853, let
me indicate support for the bill's proposals to change the accounting
of Federal insurance programs. The Federal budget currently treats
Federal insurance programs (such as flood, pension, crop, and deposit
insurance) under cash-based accounting methods. Under these methods,
the government is credited with revenue at the time the government
collects insurance premiums and is charged with expenditures at the
time the government makes claim payments. Under the accrual-based
accounting methods that H.R. 853 would establish, instead of recording
the flow of cash each year, the budget would record the risk that the
government ultimately would have to make payments not offset by the
premiums it collects.
The procedures H.R. 853 would establish would reflect the
government's liabilities at the time the government assumes them. The
expected net losses the government would incur over the life of an
insurance contract would be recorded as a cost at the time the
contractual arrangement was made. This would help policymakers
understand the true costs of policies affecting government insurance
programs.
There are some important concerns about how OMB and CBO would
estimate the expected net losses that result from insurance contracts.
For this reason, this change in accounting methods would be phased in
over 5 years, and studies would be conducted by OMB, CBO and GAO during
the phase-in period. Two years after the accounting methods were fully
implemented, they would expire, and Congress could decide whether they
had been sufficiently successful to continue their use. This seems a
prudent course to follow.
Conclusion
H.R. 853 contains some improvements in the budget process, such as
its provisions reforming the accounting of Federal insurance programs.
Unfortunately, its deleterious aspects are serious and substantially
outweigh its beneficial aspects. For these reasons, I would strongly
recommend against enacting this legislation.
Mr. Chambliss. Let me just say that all the Members here
have great appreciation, but promise not to tell the Senate
that you refer to them as the other House. We like to think of
them as that too.
I want to, while it is fresh on my mind and you are talking
about continuing CRs, frankly say, I like what Mr. Penner said
with respect to putting some sort of penalty provision in
there. What you allude to is maybe not doing it on a 12-month
basis, but maybe a 30-day, 90-day--I don't know--basis may be
preferable also.
What is your feeling about his idea of making it 95 percent
of the previous year, or if we did a 30-day CR, maybe do 2
percent every 30 days, a 2 percent reduction every 30 days? I
don't know whether that is possible or not. But off the top of
my head, I am thinking he makes a good point there, that it
needs to hurt. There needs to be some sort of real inducement
for Congress to move forward and get the work done.
What is your reaction?
Mr. Greenstein. I think Rudy and I have a similar goal
here. Our concern is that automatic CRs not supplant regular
appropriations bills.
I have concerns about his recommendation, however. My
concern is the following: Under any kind of 12-month automatic
CR, if there is a minority faction, 41 votes in the Senate that
can filibuster an appropriations bill--at least filibuster it
until they are granted something they want--they can throw the
bill into the automatic CR mode.
Having the automatic CR have a 5 percent cut in it is not
necessarily something that would prevent that from occurring if
those 41 Members were Members who opposed that particular
appropriations bill, or if they were Members who wanted to
further lower discretionary appropriations to get more money
for tax cuts or entitlement increases.
I think the existing system already puts constraints on
discretionary spending, especially with the caps. I wouldn't
favor furthering them by setting up a mechanism where we could
go to 95 percent.
I guess I think there is less need for an automatic CR than
some other people do, but to the degree there is a need, in my
view, the idea is to make it short-term and temporary, not 12
months long. If you do that, I wouldn't see the need, and I
wouldn't favor going from 100 percent down to 95 percent.
Mr. Chambliss. Does anybody else have a comment on the
length of the CR?
Ms. Wait. I will only say, Mr. Chambliss, at one point we
actually did toy around with the thought of an automatic CR
that declined in value with every passing month. I am not sure,
as you said, whether that is practical or not.
I share the view that automatic CRs ought not to become a
regular way of doing business and that they ought to involve
some pain. I would like to see the price increase as time went
on, if the automatic CR stayed in place. But I don't think that
a 30-day or 60-day or 90-day automatic CR, with all deference
to Bob, will answer the problem you are trying to get at. It
simply puts off for another 30, 60 or 90 days the point when
the government is going to shut down. The people who are
sufficiently intransigent once again have leverage, to insist
on funding for some specific priority. You would continue to
get this ratcheting-up effect to which we object very much.
Mr. Chambliss. Mr. Penner, concerning your using CBO
forecast to value PAYGO versus OMB, Mr. Minge and Mr. Nussle
are here and may correct me on this, but I think there was some
sort of constitutional problem in using OMB. If you have any
thoughts on that or any ideas on that, I am sure that we would
welcome those thoughts and ideas.
Mr. Penner. Well, I would be the last to claim that I am a
constitutional lawyer and that I am able to predict what would
pass muster with the court.
I think there are two different issues. One, as you do your
ordinary management of legislation, now you use CBO estimates.
Sometimes you direct CBO, as you did in my time there, to use
the administration's economic assumptions in costing out
various provisions, but basically it is CBO that does the work
for you.
In terms of doing the management of legislation, I think
that it would be OK to use CBO estimates. There may be a
problem, because with regard to this provision, you are
shutting off and turning on PAYGO depending on whether a
surplus is projected. But I don't really think that this would
be an issue.
If you went so far as to have the CBO estimates determine
whether there was a sequester or not, that is more troublesome.
However, I do refer in my testimony to the fact that in
responding to a recession, the Supreme Court left in place the
notion that CBO could announce a recession and then that would
expedite certain laws that you would pass.
I wonder if some kind of arrangement like that might be
used to enforce some kind of sequester. That is to say, CBO
wouldn't do it precisely by its estimate, but CBO's judgment
would put in motion certain privileged legislation that might
end up with the same result.
Mr. Chambliss. Mr. Bentsen.
Mr. Bentsen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First, let me talk
briefly about the automatic CR. I appreciate what our
colleagues are trying to accomplish with that. I opposed the
line item veto not because of the economic or accounting
question, but because I thought it was an incredible transfer
of power from the legislative branch to the executive branch. I
think to some extent the court concurred with that.
I thought about it in terms of what a Richard Nixon or a
Lyndon Johnson from my home State would have used the line item
veto for. They wouldn't have used it to cut pork, they would
have used it to legislate, get their legislative agenda
through.
At the same time, I have a concern with this automatic CR,
certainly at the current year's level of the ability of the
Congress to shift away from the executive, democratic structure
of government that we have to a parliamentary system of
government where, if the Congress decides the President is
never going to agree with them on budget policy, then they can
say, fine, we will take a painful, but minimally painful
option, and strip the budgetary power away from the President
as much as we can.
I think that is something we have to be concerned about.
The idea of a 5 or 10 percent reduction which has been used
in short-term CRs from the past, or the lower of whichever
House passed in their appropriations bills, I think is more of
a question of bleeding to death rather than forcing the
Congress to face up to their ultimate responsibility of passing
these bills.
So I think we would be wiser to look at a short term, as
Mr. Greenstein proposes, or if not that, some draconian
reduction of 50 percent or whatever is necessary to run the
central functions of the government, so it makes us do our job.
I am really even more interested in the changes in the
PAYGO rules and I have a couple of questions about that, and
let me just list these out. The first is, don't you think the
PAYGO rules, since 1990, have worked, and worked if the goal
was to get our fiscal house in order?
The second is, do you have any real fear that adjusting the
PAYGO rules where you can leverage long-term budgetary
assumptions that could result in potential mistakes and result
in sequestrations that we couldn't meet, that this is Gramm-
Rudman-Hollings all over again, where we are going to set these
targets and then not meet them and then exempt everything; and
in the end result in adding a great deal of debt? And isn't
this just unshackling us from the fiscal responsibility that
the 1990 act put in place?
I was staff here in the 1980's when we passed Gramm-Rudman-
Hollings. I was staff in the Appropriations Committee, and I
remember talking about this. Jamie Whitten added another line
to his speech about how he didn't like the Budget Act and he
was here when it started and he did not think it was a good
idea, but he complied with it, sort of, and this was going to
make it worse. And then it took us all the way to the 1990 act
to do it.
But the fear I have--and I'm not being critical of my
colleagues--but, boy, this will just open up the floodgates
now. We can say we have a 15-year projection of a $4.5 trillion
unified budget surplus, a $2.8 trillion on-budget surplus.
Let's go. And I think the likelihood of that occurring is
highly, highly--I'm highly skeptical of that.
Mr. Penner. Let me comment on your first point. I agree
that PAYGO has worked extremely well. Indeed it has worked a
lot better than I expected it to when it was first passed in
1990. I thought there would be much cheating and much
manipulating of the numbers to evade PAYGO rules. There has
been some of that, mind you, but not a lot.
But it was very clearly designed to confront a situation
where we had deficits that had some probability of getting
totally out of control. And what it did was prevent the
Congress from increasing that deficit in any way. It didn't
push them to reduce it, but it prevented them from increasing
it.
Now, as the budget balance has changed, it has the effect
of preventing you from reducing an on-budget surplus. And while
I am one who thinks it would be good to save a large portion of
the on-budget surplus, I really don't think that is a policy
outcome you want to try to build into a budget process.
Now, I agree that what I am proposing weakens PAYGO quite
considerably because of the fears that you voice. My greatest
fear is not the sequesters or the policy reversals that would
come out of the proposal made by the task force, but rather
that it would just be ignored like Gramm-Rudman. The goal line
would be moved. I think that is the most likely result of that
proposal.
So that is why I suggest doing it the way they suggest but
without reversing policies if deficits emerge. In other words,
bygones would be bygones. But I am the first to admit that that
weakens the provision quite considerably, and it does make me
somewhat nervous. But that's the direction I would go.
Ms. Wait. I may be the only person in town that actually
represents a substantial group of folks who would like to see
current PAYGO rules carried forward indefinitely, or the policy
that likely would produce. That is to say, when I had the
temerity to write testimony earlier this year urging Congress
to save 100 percent of Social Security trust fund surpluses,
the nearly unanimous response I got from my board was, why not
save 100 percent of all budget surpluses for as long as we have
surplus projections?
So my views are not due to any distaste for that policy
outcome----
Mr. Bentsen. If I might interrupt you briefly, I introduced
that amendment when we considered our budget resolution, and it
didn't fail for a second, but damn close to that.
Ms. Wait. That position didn't get a whole lot of support.
I didn't hear a whole lot of rousing applause anyplace else
when I voiced the sentiment of our board before the Ways and
Means Committee earlier this year either. Having said that, we
should not write, nor continue rules we are unwilling to
enforce or cannot enforce. That is worse in some respects than
not having any rules at all. We just become scofflaws.
I don't believe for one minute that Congress is going to
observe the PAYGO rules as they are written today for any
prolonged period of time, if we continue to see very large
surplus projections.
So the question is, how do you write a different set of
rules that will operate effectively to impose the kind of
restraints that we can agree are appropriate? As I said in our
testimony, I am not sure that Mr. Nussle and Mr. Cardin have
that absolutely right; and I am sure, having helped to write
similar legislation in the past, even once you know what you
think you want to do, you need to sit down and very carefully
draw a picture of it. You need to make sure your legislation
will produce the outcome you want it to produce.
I keep coming back to the fact that I think that this is
one area where trying to write arbitrary rules for the long
term may get you in real trouble. I think it is appropriate
every year, every couple of years, to revisit what we think is
the appropriate percentage of the surplus to put off the
reservation. And I am now talking about on-budget surpluses. I
hope we have all agreed to save the Social Security Trust fund
surplus.
I share entirely Bob Greenstein's and Rudy's concerns about
projections. I think you have to be very careful about spending
projected money, and I would be for almost any reasonable
safeguards to keep us from doing stupid things in that regard.
I think your bill moves in the right direction. But, I think
that there is some more thought needed in this area.
But I think you are kidding yourself if you think you can
actually enforce what is on the books today.
Mr. Greenstein. In answer to your question, I think, as
Rudy said, the PAYGO rules have worked well. I think you are
right that this has a lot of similarities to Gramm-Rudman in
the way it would play out.
I think Carol is right, that the current pay-as-you-go
rules, exactly as they are on the books today, would not endure
for a long time, in a period of large on-budget surpluses. But
I don't think the only alternative is the one that is in H.R.
853, to essentially eliminate those rules other than in a look-
back kind of sense.
Rudy made the very important point that these rules were
put in place when we had a period of substantial deficits. I
worry that we don't remember enough; that we are now entering
what Rudy's colleague at the Urban Institute, Gene Steuerle,
sometimes calls the eye of the hurricane. When you look at the
CBO forecast down the road, I think somewhere between 2020 and
2030, CBO projects the deficits return and begin to rise pretty
substantially. And that is a baseline projection of what would
happen if we saved 100 percent of both the on-budget and the
off-budget surplus, which we are clearly not going to do. So
under some other framework those deficits return earlier.
Given the serious problems we face out there, given the
somewhat discouraging debates we are having over Social
Security, where both sides rush to put forward proposals that
don't touch one hair on anybody's head or raise one penny in
additional revenue from anybody and just say we will somehow
pay for it all out of general revenue transfers somewhere down
the road, I think we have reason to be concerned.
And this ought to add to our concern, about not completely
blowing away these PAYGO rules before we know what we are doing
about these long-term problems that are going to be here when
the baby boomers retire.
Mr. Bentsen. I have some other questions, but I assume you
want to go around the horn.
Chairman Kasich. Mr. Nussle.
Mr. Nussle. Thank you very much. You sounded surprised in
your last comment that Congress would actually try to attempt
Social Security reform without touching beneficiaries. Don't be
surprised.
Mr. Greenstein. I feel a little discouraged, not surprised.
Mr. Nussle. First of all, I want to thank you for your
interest and for your testimony and for your careful analysis.
Right, wrong, or indifferent, I am just happy that we have
taken a sober moment in time in between budgets to take a look
at this, and I appreciate all of your interest.
Certainly you folks are the pillars as far as outside
influences on the Congress in budget reform, and I want to
thank you for that, even though we may not agree on every
single item.
First, I wanted to visit the issue of PAYGO. One of the
things that we tried to attempt, Ben Cardin and I, when we
wrote this, is to be as neutral as possible in the decision
that will need to be made. And we know it is going to have to
be made. But we also didn't want to make it today, because it
is a policy decision. Whether we use it for Social Security,
whether we use it for Medicare, whether we use it for tax cuts,
whether we use it for special education, for my farmers back
home, no matter what it is, it is a policy, political decision
that needs to be made sometime in the future.
And instead of attempting to put it into process today and
game the outcome, we said Congress should decide, which is I
think the right approach. And when you say it is unwise, Mr.
Greenstein, to use that, I don't disagree. If you and I sat in
a room and said how would we spend or use or utilize those
surpluses into the future, I think we might agree based on the
testimony we have heard today. Sounds like you would pay down
the debt, sounds like you would shore up some of those
accounts. So would I. Unfortunately, we are in a minority of
people who want to use that.
So, again, for that reason, we didn't segregate. All we
knew is that there tended to be agreement in the Congress to
set aside Social Security; and, therefore, we did that. When
you talk about not adjusting the PAYGO and being concerned
about its utilization and how it has gotten us to this point
today, I again tend to agree with you. However, are you aware
of how many times since 1990 PAYGO has been suspended and in
what instances?
Mr. Greenstein. But I think as Rudy said, and I agree with
his comment here----
Mr. Nussle. But just for the record, are you aware of when
those occurred?
Mr. Greenstein. I don't know the exact number.
Mr. Nussle. There are two times that I remember, that I
have been told about, that are very poignant, and one is 1993,
the budget agreement of 1993, which the Democrats herald as the
reason we are here today in surplus; and the other is 1997,
which is what the Republicans herald as the reason why we are
here in surplus. Both times PAYGO was suspended.
So my question to you is, even though you are advocating
that we should never touch this, this has worked and please
don't pollute it, haven't we polluted it in the past when it
has suited our situation?
Mr. Greenstein. I am not sure exactly what you are
referring to in 1993 or 1997. 1993 had, on net, both
substantial entitlement reductions, primarily in Medicare and
certainly substantial tax increases; and my understanding of
what happened was we then took all those savings and did not
put them on the PAYGO scorecard so they couldn't be spent. We
actually were tougher in 1993 and 1997 than regular PAYGO would
have required us to be, not more lenient.
Mr. Nussle. Well, but that is still a change in PAYGO. I
mean, a different President and a different Congress could do
the same thing. I am not suggesting you are wrong. Please don't
misunderstand me. We agree that PAYGO is one of the reasons,
the caps are one of the reasons why we find ourselves in this
luxury right now of even being able to have this discussion
about this ``S'' word called surplus. I understand that.
But I am just saying that Congress, at its whim, or make
fit in a reconciliation, can make that change, and has quite
frequently. In fact, the President's budget that was sent up
this year would require changes in order for it to fit into
law.
So the concern over PAYGO, I think, is a legitimate one. I
am not suggesting it is not. But to suggest that the decision
has automatically been made because we are silent on PAYGO,
because we say on-budget surpluses, basically, Congress can do
whatever it wants with that.
Because we are silent on that doesn't mean it is going to
go for tax cuts. It could go for spending increases; it could
for entitlements; it could go to pay down the debts, which is
what you and I would like to have happen. But it is still a
political decision.
The second area you talk about is on CRs, and the
interesting thing that came out in both our task force
discussion as well as what is coming out here today is that
there are people who think it is too high at 100 percent, and
there are people who think it is too low at 100 percent.
The interesting thing about that is that it probably means
it is pretty close to on target. Number one, I would suggest,
or I would ask, what number should it be at, if this is either
too high or too low? Just saying it is too high or too low I
think is interesting, but to find a number that works in a
majority of the Congress, I think, is difficult and that is the
reason why we came at status quo.
The second is when you talk about a shorter-term CR being
more effective. The only thing I can think of, as far as a
short-term CR being effective, the only reason is because
brinkmanship, of a government shutdown. The only reason it
works is because you flow in 3 days, in 1 week, in 10 days the
lengths of the CR, there will be a shutdown of those services.
Is there any other reason why a short-term CR is effective?
Because if that is the only reason why a short-term CR is
effective, that is not what we want. One of the goals was to
move away from the brinkmanship of the short-term CR strategy
and move to one that had a little bit more regular order.
So those are my kind of questions on CR for you. Do you
have any thoughts on those?
Mr. Greenstein. Let me try to respond to several of these.
I was not saying, I am not sure if other witnesses were, I
don't think so, that the 100 percent automatic CR figure was
too low. What I was saying was it was too long, 12 months is
too long, not that the 100 percent is too low.
Mr. Nussle. What number, then, would be the right length,
as far as time?
Mr. Greenstein. I have some discomfort with the whole
concept of the automatic CR, because I think it makes it too
easy to supplant the regular appropriations bills.
Mr. Nussle. OK. Let us not make it automatic, then. How
would you operate the CR?
Mr. Greenstein. I haven't really thought this all the way
through. I don't know exactly what the best answer is, but I
think relatively short.
If the goal of an automatic CR is to avert an actual
shutdown when agreement can't be worked out, and you cannot
even get agreement on a short-term CR in the conventional way,
then I don't know why you would need something more than 30
days, if even that long.
Mr. Nussle. What happens at the end to have 30 days, then?
Mr. Greenstein. It gives you 30 more days to try to work
something out. I would not favor something where you do an
automatic CR every 30 days until the whole thing works out. I
think some of the people who favor an automatic CR look at what
happened, particularly in the shutdown in 1995 and really don't
want to repeat that.
And the question is how much of a risk do we have that we
would constantly repeat that. I think there is a greater risk
in this concept of not making the choices we need to make each
year.
In my view, already in the current appropriations process
we don't do enough to decrease funding for programs that should
be decreased and favor new initiatives that really have merits.
It is hard enough to get changes because of the inbuilt
political special interest pressures that are already there.
And I worry that the whole concept of an auto CR strengthens
that.
One other quick point. I guess I view the bill as not being
silent on PAYGO, because it does change it to remove PAYGO
entirely with regard to projected surpluses. And I guess I
don't think the 1993 to 1997 analysis holds. We didn't preach
PAYGO then. We did more than PAYGO would otherwise be required
to do.
Over the years I have been in Washington, particularly in
the 1990's, over the 1990's I have been in discussions, behind-
the-scenes discussions, bipartisan discussions, on many bills
where in the absence of the PAYGO rule, at the end of the day,
both parties and both Houses would have agreed to spend more or
to cut taxes more.
And putting aside the particular instance of 1993 or 1997,
if there is nothing to require fiscal discipline at all, I
think the bias would be too heavily against the debt repayment
that you and I want to see. I think there has got to be
something that is somewhere in between the current PAYGO rules
forever, despite the magnitude of budget surpluses, and not
having anything at all. And you should not be able to spend all
of those surpluses regardless of how uncertain the outyear
projections are.
Exactly what it is that fits in between, I don't have a
precise answer. It would have to be thought through. But I
think we have to find something in between or we tilt too
heavily in a direction that it sounds like, with your interest
in debt repayment, is not where you would want to end up
either. And while your intention is to be neutral, I think the
political dynamic it would set in motion would tilt against the
debt repayment outcome.
Chairman Kasich. Mr. Bentsen.
Mr. Bentsen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a couple other
questions. Let me also say at the outset, I want to make clear
that there are elements within the bill that I think are quite
good. I do have concerns about the PAYGO provision in
particular and the automatic CR.
I think trying to define emergency spending is quite
admirable, because that is, particularly as caps get tighter,
that is becoming a huge loophole. And I think the insurance,
trying to move to an accrual basis of Federal insurance--and I
appreciate Mr. Crippen's point that we ought to, if I read your
testimony correctly, that we ought to be looking at other
programs, like the military housing, 801 military housing
programs, and some of those things, which I think are scored
unlike anything else in the world.
Let me go back to the PAYGO for a second. I agree with the
points you made, Ms. Wait, I think your point about looking at
these things every couple of years. If I had my druthers, we
would go back and look at the 1997 agreement, because I think
the worst kept secret in Washington is the caps are going to be
adjusted later this year and we are all going to try to figure
a semantical way of not taking credit for that. But while
multiyear programs don't always work, we should have a
multiyear game plan, like any business would have.
In my opinion, it would include staying as close to the
caps as possible and paying down as much of the debt as
possible, because I think we have an abnormally high debt
level. And if we want to increase defense spending, which I
think we want to, Kosovo notwithstanding but just in other
areas, and if we want to increase education spending, whatever,
we should be willing to step up to the plate, tell the American
people that is what we want to do, and pay for it.
I think the elimination of the PAYGO rules in this bill is
too loose. And even if you make the point that it is unlikely
Congress is ever in the long run going to stay by the existing
1990 PAYGO rules, I think completely doing away with them goes
too far in the other direction.
The question I have is, is it worth exploring maybe looking
at the Nussle-Cardin proposal and tweaking it a little bit to
tie in overall debt level? This is something the Europeans have
looked at with their monetary union. And I'm not sure we want
to follow that model, but it is something they have looked at
where they have set certain debt levels as far as their fiscal
policy in being part of the European Monetary Union. Is it
something we may want to say that we are not going to just
include the discretionary side, the nonentitlement side of the
budget for a look-back, but we include the tax side of the
budget as well?
Now, the typical response may be you are about as unlikely
to repeal a tax cut as you are to cut Medicare, as this would
require, but what would your thoughts be on that?
Ms. Wait. Two things. Let me start with the last part of
your question and reference something Rudy said earlier. In
1997, when we worked with Mr. Minge and Mr. Barton, Mr.
Stenholm, and many others to try and put more enforcement teeth
into the Balanced Budget Agreement, the enforcement was tied to
assumptions in the budget and the enforcement mechanism,
affected the revenue side of the budget. It worked similarly to
what Rudy was describing. It simply would have delayed
implementation of any changes in revenues that hadn't taken
effect if you were behind plan.
That proved not to be the most popular provision in the
bill. I think you are right. I don't think you are going to go
back and retrospectively cancel tax cuts. However, Jim Jones
and Carol Campbell, in 1980, suggested suspending indexing on
both sides of the budget. There is a certain apparent symmetry
to that, whether there is logical symmetry. There are things
you can do if you are interested to delay changes in law that
haven't already gone into effect from going into effect.
Having said that, let me go back for just a minute to the
fundamental concept that I think gets overlooked all too often
in this whole debate about a joint budget resolution.
I get kind of hokey when I talk about this, so I hope you
all will forgive. In our system of government the polling booth
is supposed to be the market clearing mechanism. That is the
only place where this government really is accountable. And
voters can't hold political leaders accountable if they don't
understand what you are doing. If you can find anybody on the
streets in any of your districts who purports to understand
what you are doing in the budget process today, I wish you
well.
We need somehow, someplace a process that produces a plan
for the United States Government. None of us are going to be
happy with that plan because our system of government doesn't
produce outcomes that any of us love entirely. Compromises that
are endemic to anything you-all produce. But you need a plan
that is understandable. That is why we like nominal dollar caps
you can measure yourself against caps as time goes on. They
force you from time to time, Congress and the President both,
to stand up and be counted if you want to change the levels you
last wrote into law.
I know that is a very simplistic set of concepts, but I
think it is a set of concepts that could help bring political
accountability to fiscal policy in this country that would be
highly salutary.
I would like to see whatever biases you build into whatever
PAYGO changes you make safeguards against spending surpluses
that are not going to materialize. But I would like more than
anything else to see you adopt a process sufficiently
transparent as to hold you accountable when you say however
problematic these projections may be, we think X percent of
this surplus ought to be set aside, before you start spending
the money.
When you have all of the other priorities of the Nation in
front of you, and you all have to stand up and vote, when you
and the President have to reach some kind of agreement on the
budget, that is the time to make such decisions. That is the
way our system of government works. I think that is the genius
of the joint resolution.
I think you may have very great difficulty getting the
first joint resolution enacted; but I think once you do, you
will have less difficulty than you think enacting subsequent
resolutions because priorities do change and imperatives alter
over time. You will have to change the joint resolution before
you can do the things you want to do as time moves on.
I think that is a very worthwhile undertaking.
Mr. Penner. If I understand the practical import of your
suggestion, it would be something like keeping current PAYGO in
effect until the debt to GDP ratio reaches 25 percent or some
number like that.
Mr. Bentsen. Right.
Mr. Penner. Well, I guess I very much agree with Mr. Nussle
that you don't want to build policies like that into the
process. It may be an excellent policy, but I just think that
such a provision creates too big a bias in favor of a
particular fiscal policy even though I would support that
policy.
I think what the budget process should try to do is nudge
the Congress toward fiscal prudence. And I don't think a
process can push the Congress very far. I think you just nudge
them. And I guess I would not go as far as you do in advocating
a very specific surplus policy for that long a time as part of
the process.
Mr. Bentsen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Kasich. Miss Wait and gentlemen, thank you all
again very much for being here and providing great insight into
this process; and I am sure that there will be additional
questions down the road that we may be calling each of you
individually on as we proceed down this road. So thank you very
much for being here.
I ask unanimous consent to include in the record statements
prepared by The Business Roundtable, Representative Porter
Goss, the Concord Coalition, and Bill Frenzel, co-chairman of
the Committee for a Responsible Budget.
[The prepared statement of the Business Roundtable
follows:]
Prepared Statement of Larry Bossidy, CEO, AlliedSignal, Representing
the Business Roundtable
Mr. Chairman, as chairman of the Business Roundtable's (BRT)
Federal Fiscal Policy Task Force, I am very pleased to have this
opportunity to express my support for Federal budget process reform and
to comment on the many positive aspects of H.R. 853, the Comprehensive
Budget Process Reform Act of 1999. I commend Chairman Kasich and the
members of the House Budget Committee for holding a hearing on this
important topic and I hope the committee will soon report budget
process reform legislation to the full House of Representatives for its
ultimate approval.
With the enactment of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, plus the
higher than expected revenues and lower than projected spending for
Medicare and other programs, it appears the Federal budget has entered
a new era of budget surpluses. After more than 30 years of chronic
budget deficits, the Federal budget is projected to have surpluses
throughout the next 10 years, which is truly an amazing achievement.
Congress' work, however, is far from finished. Immediate attention must
be given to maintaining the fiscal discipline that contributed so
greatly to these surpluses and to reforming the entitlement programs
that are the root cause of overspending.
The BRT also believes this new era of budget surpluses provides
Congress with a perfect opportunity to undertake a broad overview of
how Federal budget policy is established. Rather than taking the
traditional incremental approach to addressing budget challenges,
Congress, with the support of the Clinton Administration, should commit
itself to developing a new budget paradigm that stresses continuation
of budget surpluses, institution of a long-term effort at debt
retirement, implementation of entitlement reform, simplifying the tax
code, and consideration of needed solutions to the unfunded liability
crisis inherent in many Federal programs.
A new budget paradigm also is needed to help policymakers avoid
repeating the mistakes of the past and replace political expediency
with decisions that instill the long-term economic health of the nation
as the first priority. More government and higher taxes are not the
answer. Every decision affecting the way taxpayers' dollars are spent
should be focused on fostering continued low unemployment, low
inflation, low interest rates, and rising family incomes.
The current process of crafting the Federal Government's $1.8
trillion budget is unquestionably complex, time consuming, and
incomprehensible to the American people. There is also an apparent bias
within the process that encourages increased spending and penalizes
efforts to make government less intrusive and more responsive to the
needs of our nation's citizens. Equally troubling, the current budget
process does not seem well suited to deal with the emerging issues
resulting from budget surpluses or the looming challenges of Social
Security and Medicare reform that threaten our country's economic
security.
In our view, budget process reform must focus on three key points:
(1) help Congress fulfill its past commitments to fiscal discipline;
(2) improve the ability of policymakers to deal with the unavoidable
challenges facing upcoming Federal budgets; and (3) promote non-
inflationary economic growth for current and future generations. The
BRT is pleased to see that H.R. 853 contains a number of provisions
that move Federal budget process reform in the proper direction. For
example:
Giving the budget resolution the force of law. Requiring Congress
and the President to reach consensus during the early stages of the
taxing and spending process is an important improvement over the
current system. Since the current budget resolution does not require
the President's signature, there are no incentives for the legislative
and the executive branches to resolve budget and tax differences until
the end of the fiscal year when a government shutdown becomes a real
possibility.
Defining emergency spending. A major flaw with the current
discretionary spending caps has been the inclusion of an ``emergency
clause'' that permits spending to exceed those caps in order to address
natural disasters and international crises. However, this special
exception has been used in almost every fiscal year as an escape valve
to avoid the difficult decisions involved in reestablishing spending
priorities in order to address unanticipated spending emergencies.
Placing an enforceable definition of what constitutes a ``budget
emergency'' is long overdue and is one of the most constructive
improvements that Congress can provide to the budget process.
Creating an emergency/reserve spending fund. Rather than continuing
the current practice of spending the full statutory limit, a more
rational approach would be to have the appropriations process spend
less than the amount permitted under the discretionary spending caps.
H.R. 853's provision of creating a reserve fund equal to the average
``emergency'' spending over the last 5 years seems reasonable and
prudent. This reserve fund will help assure that budgetary resources
under the discretionary caps will be available when natural disasters
and international crises occur.
Budgeting for unfunded liabilities. The untold story behind current
budget surpluses is that these cash balances do not take into account
the trillions of dollars in unfunded liabilities that future Federal
budgets must address. For example, the Federal Government's future
unfunded liabilities total more than $14 trillion for Social Security
and Medicare benefits, $2 trillion in pension and health care costs for
military and Federal civilian retirees, and $4.9 trillion in Federal
insurance programs. These unfunded liabilities mean that the Federal
Government has promised benefits to our nation's citizens, yet there
are no budgetary resources available to pay for them. Although H.R. 853
does not require specific reforms to these unfunded programs, the
legislation creates an important first step by identifying these
liabilities within the budget process and within the budget document.
This information, in turn, will help educate policymakers and the
American people as to the magnitude of the unfunded liability problem
and will force policymakers to start considering needed structural
reforms.
All of these reforms within H.R. 853 are important contributions
toward improving how Congress and the Administration spend taxpayers'
money. The current budget process is confusing to the American people
and these proposals begin the process of streamlining how budget and
taxing decisions are made.
However, the Business Roundtable encourages the House Budget
Committee and the entire House of Representatives to examine additional
reforms to the Federal budget process that we believe will further
advance the fundamental changes that are required. For example, we hope
Members of Congress will consider: (1) restoring a constitutional
version of the line-item veto; (2) establishing biennial budgeting; (3)
enacting entitlement spending limits to bring entitlement spending
under greater congressional control; and (4) establishing a mechanism
that preserves Social Security surpluses and uses them to help retire a
portion of the national debt.
Mr. Chairman, I greatly appreciate your willingness to permit the
BRT to discuss its views concerning H.R. 853 and the need for
comprehensive reform of the Federal budget process. The Business
Roundtable stands ready to assist Congress in any way possible to
streamline and improve the current budget process. BRT further commends
the leadership and hard work that Representatives Nussle, Cardin, and
Minge have shown in fashioning a bipartisan approach that will greatly
improve the chances of budget process reform being enacted during the
current Congress. Thank you much for your attention and consideration.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Goss follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Porter Goss, a Representative in Congress
From the State of Florida
Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to be here today to discuss the specific
proposals outlined in H.R. 853. First, I would like to commend you and
particularly Reps. Nussle, Cardin and Minge for their tireless efforts
to develop this bipartisan reform plan. It has been a long road but I
do think we have a very fine work product one that we should be quite
proud of.
As the committee is aware, two of the major pillars of H.R. 853 the
joint budget resolution and the emergency reserve fund properly fall
under the jurisdiction of the Budget Committee. I firmly believe that
the joint budget resolution will provide greater opportunity for
agreement between the White House and Congress earlier in the process,
while maintaining the requisite flexibility to move alternatives should
we disagree. The emergency reserve fund should make sense to most
Americans who are forced to budget up-front for their own emergencies.
But I would like to focus most of my comments today on the
provisions in H.R. 853 that fall under the jurisdiction of the Rules
Committee. As Chairman of the Subcommittee on Legislative and Budget
Process, I have been working on reforming our broken budget process for
several years and I am grateful that we have been able to work so well
with our counterparts on the Budget Committee. By working closely
together at the Member and staff level, we have been able to ensure
that the provisions in our jurisdiction complement the important
reforms under your watch.
Mr. Chairman, as you well know, our budget process is broken. As
Rep. Minge alluded to on the house floor this week, we are
unfortunately seeing a repeat of last years's omnibus appropriation
debacle with the emergency supplemental we approved this week. In a
way, this may be a blessing in disguise as it has placed this sometimes
arcane subject directly on the radar screen of Members. The cloakrooms
are buzzing about the need for reform, and H.R. 853 provides a common
sense, bipartisan answer.
The Rules Committee-specific elements in H.R. 853 intend to bring
some overdue accountability to the budget process. We create a
requirement that committees include a budget compliance statement in
reports to accompany legislation. The statement would be furnished by
your committee to indicate whether the bill falls within allowable
levels of spending. On a bipartisan note, we have added a long time
proposal of our ranking member, Rep. Moakley, to apply Budget Act
points of order to unreported bills as well, closing a loophole for the
larger pieces of legislation that are not reported out of committee.
I am particularly excited about a provision in H.R. 853 to require
committees to submit schedules for reauthorizing programs within their
jurisdiction within 10 years or less. We go further and prohibit the
consideration of new spending programs unless their duration is for 10
or fewer years. As the chairman well knows, programs tend to take on a
life of their own around here and this is an incremental, but
important, step toward enhanced oversight and committee accountability.
We also decided to get tougher on ourselves by requiring our
committee to justify waivers of budget act points of order and to
estimate the costs of those waivers. We all recognize that waivers will
be necessary from time to time. However, Members and the public should
know the reasoning behind the waiver so they can make better, more
educated decisions about the underlying piece of legislation.
Finally, we incorporate a number of popular proposals of Members.
We include a provision long championed by a member of the Budget
Committee, Rep. Nick Smith, to require an up or down vote on increasing
the debt limit. By repealing the so-called Gephardt rule in this
manner, we hope to move toward more sunshine and more accountability.
We have also established procedures for a spending cuts lock-box to
``lock away'' savings in appropriations bills a bipartisan provision
whose time has clearly come.
Mr. Chairman, the time is ripe for budget process reform. The
American people recognize the process is flawed and outdated and
Members on both sides of the aisle are frustrated with the current
system. H.R. 853 does not answer all the questions and it does not move
as far in some areas as some of us would have liked. But it is a
serious, thoughtful and comprehensive approach to a very real problem.
It is designed to make a difference, and not just a political
statement. Thanks again for holding this hearing and I look forward to
working with you in the near future to pass H.R. 853.
[The prepared statement of the Concord Coalition follows:]
Prepared Statement of Martha Phillips, Representing the Concord
Coalition
I am pleased to appear today in support of H.R. 853, a bipartisan
bill to strengthen the budget process. I am representing the Concord
Coalition, a nationwide, grassroots bipartisan organization dedicated
to strengthening the nation's long term economic prospects through
prudent fiscal policy.
Background
Concord's co-chairs are former senators, Warren Rudman (R-NH) and
Sam Nunn (D-GA). They, along with our approximately 200,000 members who
hail from every state, have worked hard in recent years to help build a
political climate that encourages elected officials to make the tough
choices required to 1) balance the Federal budget, 2) keep it balanced
during times of peacetime prosperity, and 3) prepare for the budget
problems that will occur as the nation's population becomes sharply
older in coming decades.
Balancing the Federal Government's books is the single most
effective policy we have to increase savings, which in turn are the key
to long term economic growth. Savings provide the capital needed to
increase the productivity of American workers, something that will
become especially urgent when the retirement of the huge baby boom
generation virtually halts growth in the size of the U.S. work force.
With a fixed-size work force, economic growth and an improving standard
of living will depend almost entirely on how much we invest in gaining
additional output from each person working in our economy.
Concord believes that not only should we put the rest of the
government's accounts into balance, we should also use the current
economic, fiscal, demographic and political windows of opportunity to
address the long-term Social Security and Medicare deficits that will
accompany the aging of America. These looming and unsustainable
deficits threaten to undo the hard work and fiscal discipline of recent
years and undermine our potential for future economic growth.
Budget Process Reform
Given this mission and set of concerns, it should be readily
apparent why the Concord Coalition strongly supports establishing tight
fiscal discipline procedures and enforcing them scrupulously.
The Congressional budget process that has been developed over the
last couple of decades has helped enormously in improving fiscal
discipline compared to the situation in the 1960's when there simply
was no Congressional budget process and only the aversion to increasing
the public debt to hold things in check. The president submitted his
budget each year, Congress enacted appropriations, and in most election
years, tax cuts. Sometime after the dust had settled, a report came
from the Treasury Department adding up the damage. An obscure two-
person staff attached to the Appropriations Committee was what passed
for congressional scorekeeping and few people knew what they did or
thought that it mattered.
Budget enforcement procedures enacted in 1974 have been continually
refined through trial and error, the reconciliation process launched in
President Carter's last year in office, Gramm-Rudman in 1985, mini-
budget summits and establishment of discretionary and mandatory
aggregates in 1987 and 1988, and the Budget Enforcement Act in 1990.
These changes have helped Congress manage the political pressures
inherent in our competitive democratic (small d) political system in
which the rewards are for reducing taxes and delivering helpful
benefits, services and public works are more immediate and direct than
the distant, diffuse and indirect rewards for prudent financial
management.
As the authors of H.R. 853 understand, budget discipline require
observing not just the letter of the law, but also the spirit of the
law. In other words, no matter now clever the budget mouse trap, it
will not work without political will. But budget rules and disciplines
can raise the hurdles and make it more difficult to fling fiscal
probity aside. H.R. 853 proposes a number of very useful improvements
in the evolving budget process and changes that are needed as the
politics of surplus replace the politics of deficit.
The budget process is complicated, confusion and often confounding.
The first Congressional budget procedures were drafted largely in
response to Congress's dismay over the Nixon Administration's
impoundment practices; and the intention of the budget process in the
early years was not to reduce the growing deficit, but rather to bring
information, rationality, and advance planning to Congressional
enactment of spending and taxing authority.
Today, the budget process is first and foremost a tool of fiscal
enforcement. It is a detailed set of rules about what can and cannot be
done, how and where limits are set. As with discipline in almost any
situation, it's understood that limits are, on balance, good for us.
But we often don't like them when they get in the way of what we want
to do. So the natural response is to test the limits in an attempt to
get our way without getting caught.
Looking at the Congressional budget process as it is currently
practiced, where are changes needed in order to establish and
enforcement such limits? H.R. 853 addresses the very places where
budget enforcement has broken down most flagrantly in the recent past--
emergency spending, end-game tactics, scoring of Federal insurance
programs, creation of new entitlements, and lack of enforcement of the
existing budget discipline rules.
Budget Format Change
The budget process since 1974 has evolved from one that aimed at
providing information to one that drives fiscal discipline. The 20
budget functions provide useful information, but they have nothing to
do with budget enforcement. Instead, budget discipline is enforced
through aggregate limits on direct spending, discretionary defense and
discretionary non-defense spending, revenues, deficits and the debt.
H.R. 853 would simplify the budget resolution to these aggregate
categories. Agreements on large aggregates are often easier to reach
than agreements on the component parts, since all parties can assume
that their own highest priorities will be accommodated and someone
else's will come at the end of the list if there isn't sufficient room
to do everything. Parties to the agreements undoubtedly will have their
own list of specific spending levels that they assume can be
accommodated within the aggregates, and under the bill, budget
functions will continue to be displayed in the committee report for
informational purposes and will reflect the majority's assumptions.
However, agreeing at the beginning of the year on the enforceable
totals for direct mandatory spending, discretionary defense and non
defense spending, emergency spending and revenues is a vast improvement
over the current process. These levels will function as decision-
forcing limits. The issue is not ``how much shall we spend?'' but
rather, ``how shall we divide up the allowable resources?'' The
proposed change simply makes explicit what has become implicit as
policy makers have gained experience with budget enforcement.
Concord is pleased to see that the proposed legislation continues
to exclude Social Security revenues and benefit payments from the
aggregate totals for revenue and spending. This is appropriate, since
the Social Security surplus funds have too long been used to finance
deficit spending by the rest of the government.
Joint Resolution
I personally have long advocated changing the budget resolution to
a Joint Resolution that requires the President's signature. The
allocation of constrained resources is a tough political process, and
the earlier in the year that agreement can be reached on at least a
general framework, the better. If the budget resolution continued to
require function-by-function detail, the Congress and the White House
would seldom be able to agree on a joint resolution, particularly
during times of divided party control. However, even with different
parties in control of different chambers or branches of government, it
should be possible most years to agree on aggregates.
The bill provides that if agreement cannot be reached, Congress
will fall back to the current practice of enacting a concurrent
resolution, which does not require the President's signature.But if
agreement can be reached on a Joint Resolution that the president
signs, then both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue will be more likely to
cooperate on enforcement, and less prone to driving Sherman tanks
through loopholes.
Passage of a joint budget resolution signed by the president should
also be of considerable help in managing the difficult end-game at the
close of each session of Congress. Lately, the closing days of the
session have become a very costly and unattractive combination of food-
fight and budgetary chicken in which the aim of each side seems to be
to inflict maximum political embarrassment on the other while getting
as much as possible for one's own spending or tax priorities. In the
melee, scoring doesn't have a chance to keep pace with the action.
After the session is over and the dust settles, the results are toted
up and the taxpayer finally gets an assessment of the damage. A joint
budget resolution linked to strengthened enforcement procedures could
help prevent these end-game spending gluts in the future.
The bill also provides for an automatic continuing resolution to
provide funding in lieu of any regular appropriation bills that have
not been enacted before the beginning of the fiscal year. An automatic
CR should also result in eliminating the worst end-game practices,
since the threat of shutting down the government will no longer be
relevant. The bill would set the automatic CR level at the prior year's
level. Thus some pressure would still exist for those who wished to see
appropriations for particular programs set either higher or lower than
the previous year to work out compromises that would result in a
regular appropriation.
Emergency Spending
Emergency spending, particularly appropriations at the end of the
session, arguably has become the largest loophole in the Congressional
budget process.
The current emergency spending provisions were enacted in 1990 when
the Budget Enforcement Act was devised. Those of us who were in the
room in 1990 recall that many long hours of bipartisan effort went into
trying to write criteria for what would qualify as emergency spending.
It seemed that for every definition that we attempted, someone could
come up with an example that we all agreed was truly an emergency but
somehow didn't fit the proposed definition, or an example that we all
agreed was not an emergency but somehow did seem to fit the proposed
definition. At last it was agreed that since Congress and the White
House undoubtedly would observe the spirit of the budget process, it
was sufficient to say that an emergency was whatever both Congress and
the President designated it to be. That has not worked.
One serious problem has been that not enough is appropriated
through the conventional appropriations process to finance adequate the
disaster relief programs. Scarcely a year goes by without a devastating
fire, flood, drought, earthquake, tornado, hurricane somewhere in the
nation. About the only things that are predictable about such disasters
is that they will occur, and that Americans will willingly provide
assistance to the devastated victims. Over time, the cost of responding
to these tragedies is also roughly predictable. We don't know what
disaster or emergency lies ahead, but we must assume that there will be
one. Yet, year after year, insufficient funds are appropriated through
the basic 13 appropriations bills to finance even an average level of
disaster spending. All the allocated discretionary funding get used up
for other purposes. Then when disaster strikes, it's too late to say,
``we should have kept some funds in reserve.'' The spending limits have
already been reached and it is necessary to exercise the emergency
spending provision.
Another serious problem is that in the last several months, all
sense of restraint and proportion regarding the emergency designation
have broken down. The glut of emergency spending at the end of the
105th Congress was a major breach of the spirit of the budget process
and resulted in a hemorrhage of tens of billions of dollars of non-
emergency spending financed out of the Social Security surplus. The
supplemental appropriation currently in process, which responds to
unanticipated needs for defense spending related to the Kosovo
situation, to aid Hurricane Mitch victims in Central America is showing
every sign of turning into an undisciplined ``pile on.'' The amounts
requested by the Administration have been doubled, with most of the
extra funds going to pay for defense spending that normally would be
provided in the Fiscal Year 2000 appropriations process. Since
discretionary appropriation limits are extremely tight, Congress is
succumbing to the temptation to use the emergency spending loophole to
cram in regular defense spending now in a way that doesn't count toward
the appropriations limits. Particularly egregious provisions are those
that expand entitlement spending by rolling back military pension
reforms. Any notion of enacting offsets to pay for the phony emergency
items seems to have long since been forgotten.The emergency spending
procedures, in short, have given way to sheer budget hypocrisy.
H.R. 853 proposes several useful changes to address the situation.
The automatic increases in discretionary and mandatory limits to
accommodate emergency spending would be repealed and any spending that
exceeds the enforceable limits in mandatory and discretionary spending
would result in a sequester. A clear procedure for determining whether
an emergency exists would be established along with a definition of
what constitutes an emergency: namely that it is needed to address
``loss of life or property, or a threat to national security,'' and
that it is unanticipated, which is defined as sudden, urgent,
unforeseen and temporary. As part of the budget resolution, a reserve
fund would be set aside in advance of the appropriations process to
finance emergencies up to a level equal to a 5-year rolling average.
Finally, a fall back procedure would be established to deal with truly
extraordinary emergency spending beyond what can be financed through
the reserve fund.
In combination, these changes would help to restore budget
discipline in the case of emergency spending, and the Concord Coalition
endorses their enactment. Indeed, in terms of sheer dollar amounts, the
proposed package of emergency spending provisions may be the most
important part of the bill.
Long-Term Insurance Liabilities
The current scoring procedures do not accurately reflect the long
term Federal liabilities associated with various government insurance
programs such as bank and credit union deposit insurance, crop
insurance, flood insurance, pension insurance, political risk insurance
(OPIC) and Federal employees' and veterans' life insurance. The
premiums paid by purchasers of the insurance are booked immediately and
appear to improve the government's bottom line. But the government's
obligation to make payments in satisfaction of insurable events do not
appear on the government's books until they occur. If premiums are too
low to pay insurance benefits when they come due, the government must
cut other spending, raise taxes, or borrow from the public to meet
those obligations.
H.R. 853 proposes setting up a new scoring and accounting system
for Federal insurance programs to deal with these problems. It would be
similar in many respects to the scoring that was devised for Federal
credit programs in 1990. Insurance programs would, in essence, be
subject to accrual accounting, and methods would be developed for
estimating the government's long-term liabilities and integrating these
estimates into the budget process.
Experience with developing a new accounting system for Federal
credit programs shows that while such methodology can be developed and
successfully implemented, it is not easy to do so. Nevertheless, the
attempt should be made to update scoring methodology for Federal
insurance programs.
The largest Federal insurance programs--Social Security and
Medicare--are specifically exempted from these new procedures. Yet
these programs, which will be severely impacted by the aging of our
nation's population in the next few decades, have enormous unfunded
liabilities, amounting to XX trillion, if not more. The bill does
propose that both OMB and CBO report on long-term budgetary trends for
these large entitlement programs, over a 75-year horizon, analyzing how
present law and proposed changes would affect spending, revenues,
deficits or surpluses. However, much of that information is already
available and has little impact on the willingness of either branch of
government to address the unfunded liabilities of these two large
programs.
New and Existing Entitlements
Entitlement programs are the most difficult to manage under the
budget process since they are guaranteed what ever funds are required
to meet their obligations, sometimes long after current priorities
would support them. In contrast, discretionary programs must have their
funding renewed annually or every few years, and appropriations for
each discretionary program must compete for scarce resources against
all the other valid and attractive uses for the same money. Someone
once suggest a working definition of an entitlement: ``a discretionary
program that has died and gone to heaven. It always gets its funding,
never has to go to the Appropriations Committee, and never has to
justify why it should get money ahead of other programs.''
H.R. 853 will address this situation in several ways. New
entitlements would be subject to annual appropriations. Legislation
authorizing new entitlements lasting longer than 10 years would not be
allowed. If the Appropriations Committee offsets new discretionary
programs with reductions in entitlements, it would be held harmless
through cap and PAYGO scorecard adjustments. Creation of new
entitlements or expansions of existing ones would have to be justified
by the Budget Committee. And an oversight review of all programs,
including entitlements,would be required within a 10 year time frame
Spending Government Surpluses
The prospect of on-budget surpluses raises an entirely new
dimension to the budget process. The Concord Coalition is very
concerned about the large unfunded liabilities in the Social Security
and Medicare programs when baby boomers retire and begin claiming
benefits. We strongly oppose using Social Security surpluses to finance
deficits in the rest of the government.
However, the use of surpluses resulting from revenues and
expenditures in the rest of the government, excluding Social Security,
are a different matter. There is room for a legitimate debate over how
these ``rest of government'' surpluses should be used. Concord would
assign highest priority to reducing the public debt. We believe this
would increase national savings available for investments in future
productivity and would have a greater payoff than most tax cuts or
government spending. Others disagree and would prefer to use ``rest of
government'' surpluses for tax cuts, investments in education,
infrastructure, research and development that promise to spur economic
growth in the future. And some would choose to use the money to provide
services that would benefit citizens today.
H.R. 853 allows for the use of ``rest of government'' surpluses.
Concord does not oppose this provision. However, we are concerned that
spending increase or tax cut commitments might be made in anticipation
of budget surpluses that either do not materialize at all or are not as
large as expected. The authors of the bill have anticipated this by
providing that if legislation is enacted that exceeds the actual
surpluses, a sequester will occur unless the shortfall is made up..
Other Provisions
The bill contains a number of other helpful and useful provisions
for improving budget discipline and providing timely information. The
requirement that the Congressional Budget Office produce cost estimates
of conference reports is particularly helpful. Applying budget
enforcement rules to legislation that somehow makes it to the floor
without being reported from committee is another useful provision.
A 60-vote requirement in the Senate raises the hurdle for bypassing
budget enforcement points of order, but in the House, rules for
consideration of legislation frequently waive budget enforcement points
of order, and there is no recourse for Members who wish to enforce the
budget process other than to defeat the rule. There is no point in
having budget enforcement rules if they are constantly ignored. The
bill addresses this situation by requiring the Rules Committee to
justify any rule that waives budget points of order. Until such
justifications become pro forma, this provision might have a dampening
effect on ignoring budget discipline.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Frenzel follows:]
Prepared Statement of Bill Frenzel Co-Chairman, Committee for a
Responsible Federal Budget
Thank you from myself, and from the Committee for a Responsible
Federal Budget, for the opportunity to testify on this important
subject. Because I expect to be out of the country at the time of the
hearing, this written testimony will have to do for now. However,
because I believe the Bill, and the reforms, you are discussing are so
important, I will be glad to sit down with you, or any member of this
distinguished committee, to review at length any of these matters at a
mutually convenient time.
It is my understanding that your hearing will focus on the reforms
contained in H.R. 853, introduced this year by Mr. Nussle (IA), Mr.
Cardin (MD) and Mr. Goss (FL), the latter of whom is the Chairman of
your Process Subcommittee, and others, including yourself, Mr.
Chairman, and the Chairman of the House Budget Committee. I will also
refer to the pioneering work done by Mr. Barton (TX) in H.R. 2599
(1995). H.R. 4142 (1996), and H.R. 2003 (1997), and to some of the
ideas of the Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, Mr. Domenici,
mostly expressed in S. 92 and S. 93, which has now been divided into a
number of other bills.
Following the form of the authors' highlights of H.R. 853, provided
by your staff, my comments are as follows:
I. Joint Budget Resolution
Junking the present Concurrent Resolution, and substituting a Joint
Resolution which must be signed by the President, is essential to
making the Budget Process into a serious exercise. The fact that we now
we have two budgets is source of considerable mischief, and of infinite
confusion about ``baselines''. One single budget is easier for the
public to understand. It would create a new level of political
accountability sadly lacking in the current process.
It would be easier for the Congress, CBO, OMB and the President to
deal with. It should move much of the negotiations which now clog the
end-of-the-fiscal-year period up into the end of the second quarter of
the year.
The enforceable discretionary caps long sought by Mr. Barton, and
supported by Mr. Domenici, would become a matter of law with a firewall
between defense and non defense spending. We would still strongly
prefer a 5 or 6 year extension of the caps in the Joint Resolution.
Reducing the 20 present budget functions to total spending and
revenue levels with separations for discretionary and mandatory
spending is a useful simplification, similar to the recommendations of
S. 93.
II. Budgeting for Emergencies
The requirements of H.R. 853 are essential to bandage one of the
worst running sores of the current process. When the Congress and the
President wave the magic wand of ``emergency'' over routine
expenditures, they give the process a bad name and weaken public trust
and understanding. No language, outside of capital punishment, is
strong enough, but this helps.
We still prefer the stronger protections of Mr. Barton's H.R. 2599.
III. Enforcement
The strengthened enforcement procedures of H.R. 853 are the very
least that should be considered. Waiver approval, by this committee, is
another good proposal. I pray the committee will set a strong precedent
of gimlet-eyed scrutiny and a willingness to say no when it needs to be
said.
IV. Increased Accountability
This is another set of useful proposals. The 10 year sunset of new
spending proposals is a particularly good.
Because of the Senate's lack of a germaneness rule and its
willingness to amend anything, I am less enthusiastic about having
separate votes on the debt. Such votes have the odor of accountability
about them, but, in fact, they have not improved fiscal sobriety in
budgeting. In my judgment, they simply offer fresh opportunities for
mischief.
V. Accrual Budgeting
For non-CPAs, it is often useful to peek into the till, but accrual
accounting is the right way to handle the long term insurance programs
covered here.
With respect to protection of Social Security, the provisions are
important and necessary for public confidence in the American Social
Contract. Mr. Barton has expressed similar ideas, and Mr. Domenici's
lock box language is even better.
VI. Reducing the Big Spending Bias
Comparisons with last year's spending is a huge step forward. The
public will understand the comparisons, and love them!
Stop-gap appropriations at last year's spending levels may be an
improvement over the present process. They will protect the Congress
from its own folly, but they represent a power shift from the
legislative branch to the executive. We prefer the Barton figure of
95%, or lower, rather than the 100% in H.R. 853. At 100%, we believe
that there may be insufficient incentive to negotiate.
The discretionary savings' lock-box provisions will provide
incentives for spending reduction amendments, and may be one of the
great ``sleeper'' provisions of the bill.
VII. Pay-Go in Times of Surplus
It may accurate to describe our committee as elderly and unable to
think in terms of the modern ``surplus'' economy. Nevertheless, it
makes me nervous to relax any hard-won restrictive rules. This feature
may be a reform, but we remain unconvinced of its value. It opens doors
we would prefer to keep closed. This feature is may be necessary in
this modern era, and is similar to provision prepared by Mr. Barton in
his 1998 version which was not formally introduced.
VIII. Other Reforms Not in H.R. 853
1. Biennial Budget--Both Mr. Barton and Mr. Domenici favor. Our
committee recommended it to Congress in 1994. You may have to consider
it somewhere in the process of reform. But, in my judgment, Biennial
budgeting pales in comparison to the many other splendid reforms in
H.R. 853.
2. Enhanced Rescission--Since the Court decision on the Line-Item-
Failure, I believe it is now responsible to revisit this subject. The
committee and I have always thought that, at the very least, a vote
ought to be required to give a rescission item a proper burial.
3. Entitlement Caps--Neither H.R. 853 nor Mr. Domenici includes
this subject. We still stand with Mr. Barton on his 1995 proposal, but
we harbor no illusions that your committee is going to jump off this
cliff.
Mr. Chairman, your committee is engaged in as important a labor as
the Congress will work on this biennium. The Committee for a
Responsible Federal Budget congratulates you, and the distinguished
members of your committee, for this undertaking. Our committee would
love to term limit itself as soon as a responsible Federal budget is no
longer an oxymoron. If you can enact what is now before you, you will
be helping us toward the retirement we so earnestly seek and richly
deserve.
Chairman Kasich. And with that, we will stand adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:40 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]